''PlaneShift'' is a

cross-platform In computing, cross-platform software (also called multi-platform software, platform-agnostic software, or platform-independent software) is computer software that is designed to work in several computing platforms. Some cross-platform software ...

3D Online Multiplayer Role Playing Game in a fantasy setting. The framework is

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...

with the server and client released under the

GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end user In product development, an end user (sometimes end-user) is a person who ultimately uses or is intended to ulti ...

v2, while the artistic content is covered under a proprietary license. All content, however, is available free of cost. The game requires

client Client(s) or The Client may refer to: * Client (business) * Client (computing), hardware or software that accesses a remote service on another computer * Customer or client, a recipient of goods or services in return for monetary or other valuabl ...

software to be installed on the player's computer. The project is no-budget and produced by a group of developers guided by the Atomic Blue organization. The development team comprises volunteers from mostly European countries and North America. An Unreal Engine port has been released in its alpha stage.

Setting

''PlaneShift'' takes place inside a colossal

stalactite A stalactite (, ; from the Greek 'stalaktos' ('dripping') via ''stalassein'' ('to drip') is a mineral formation that hangs from the ceiling of caves, hot springs, or man-made structures such as bridges and mines. Any material that is soluble an ...

named Yliakum. TUX December 2006 Issue 20, Pg 60 Players begin in the main city, Hydlaa, where they will start their journey. ''PlaneShift'' has 9 playable races, each of which have their own homelands and characteristics. The races feature standard fantasy types, like elves and dwarves, but also humanoids made of rock and winged amphibians. Though set underground, life is possible because a crystal named the Azure Sun draws light from the surface of the planet.

Gameplay

''PlaneShift'' gameplay is based on classical Multiplayer Role Playing Game style, with exploration, magic, single player or team based combat and quests. A major goal of the game is to explore and learn. This can either be done by reading books or by learning about the world by speaking with the NPCs. The interaction with the NPCs is based on predefined answers the player can pick from a list, and also a freeform text entry, which uses natural language parsing to interpret the text. Some of these NPC's provide quests and guidance on how to proceed to gain items and powers. The quests are sequenced to allow character progression in the different skills of the game. There are also events, hosted by Game Masters, that allow for unique quests, festivals and happenings. Players increase their character's skills by completing these quests in the game. The game has strong focus on

Role-play Role-playing or roleplaying is the changing of one's behaviour to assume a role, either unconsciously to fill a social role, or consciously to act out an adopted role. While the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' offers a definition of role-playing a ...

(RP). IC (In-Character) behaviour and speech are promoted by the Game Master team. Players trade using the currency Tria, a triangle-shaped coin. There are denominations for 10, 50 and 250 Tria, named Hexas, Octas and Circles.

Character creation

The ''PlaneShift''

character creation Character creation (also character generation or character design) is the process of defining a game character or other character. Typically, a character's individual strengths and weaknesses are represented by a set of statistics. Games with a ...

tool features two options. The first option is to choose to make a "quick" character, in which a player chooses a "path" and the character's specific attributes are chosen based on the profession. A path reflects the career of the character in his youth, and has associated events which will set the starting skills and stats. The available paths are "Street Warrior", "Enchanter", "Fighting Monk", "Warlock", "Knight", "Rogue". The second option is to make a character with the "custom" method. This method allows the player to choose many additional aspects of the character by describing the story of their birth, parents, jobs, house, siblings, and the life events that happened up to his or her adulthood. The choices made affect the starting attributes and skills the character has.planeshift
on

Linux Magazine ''Linux Magazine'' is an international magazine for Linux software enthusiasts and professionals. It is published by the former Linux New Media division of the German media company Medialinx AG. The magazine was first published in German in 19 ...

Combat

''PlaneShift'' features both

player versus environment Player versus environment or player versus enemy (PvE, also known as player versus monster (PvM)), is a term used for both single player and online games, particularly MMORPGs, CORPGs, MUDs, other online role-playing video games and survival ga ...

and

player versus player Player versus player (PvP) is a type of multiplayer interactive conflict within a game between human players. This is often compared to player versus environment (PvE), in which the game itself controls its players' opponents. The terms are mo ...

combat. The latter is implemented as the ability to engage in

duel A duel is an arranged engagement in combat between two people, with matched weapons, in accordance with agreed-upon Code duello, rules. During the 17th and 18th centuries (and earlier), duels were mostly single combats fought with swords (the r ...

s on a voluntary basis, which requires both parties to agree to the conditions of the duel. If two players'

guilds A guild ( ) is an association of artisans and merchants who oversee the practice of their craft/trade in a particular area. The earliest types of guild formed as organizations of tradesmen belonging to a professional association. They sometimes ...

are at war with each other, they do not need to agree to a duel in order to initiate combat with each other. Characters attain progression points (PP) when they successfully engage in combat and use certain abilities, which are used for training attributes. PlaneShift uses a skill based progression system, which allows the player to develop this character in any skills without the mandatory choice of a profession.

Magic

''PlaneShift'' magic comprises several distinct "Ways" (Schools): Crystal Way, Red Way, Brown Way, Azure Way, Blue Way, and Dark Way. Casting spells requires combinations of special magical items called glyphs. The spells are not known upfront, and have to be researched by combining

glyph A glyph () is any kind of purposeful mark. In typography, a glyph is "the specific shape, design, or representation of a character". It is a particular graphical representation, in a particular typeface, of an element of written language. A g ...

s in sequence.

Development

The PlaneShift project is developed under guidance of Atomic Blue, a Texas-based

non-profit organization A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...

. The PlaneShift development team is organised in several departments with corresponding leaders. PlaneShift has been open to players

for free "For Free" is a song by American musician DJ Khaled featuring Canadian rapper Drake. It was released on June 3, 2016 by We the Best Music Group and Epic Records as the lead single from DJ Khaled's ninth studio album, ''Major Key''. The song wa ...

since its first public release. The server side engine code and the client code is written from scratch by the PlaneShift team, while the 3D rendering features are based on the

Crystal Space Crystal Space is a framework for developing 3D computer graphics, 3D software, applications written in C++ by Jorrit Tyberghein and others. The first public release was on August 26, 1997. It is typically used as a game engine but the framework i ...

3D engine. Since the Crystal Space engine is no longer supported, the whole game content is currently being moved to Unreal Engine. On 6 February 2023 the final move of player characters to the Unreal Engine version 0.7.30 took place. The move was announced on the Discord server only. The website will be updated soon. The servers and the internet connection for the game are donated by sponsors. The game uses two different

licenses A license (or licence) is an official permission or permit to do, use, or own something (as well as the document of that permission or permit). A license is granted by a party (licensor) to another party (licensee) as an element of an agreeme ...

: the engine is released under the

v2, and the content is released under a

proprietary license Proprietary software is software that is deemed within the free and open-source software to be non-free because its creator, publisher, or other rightsholder or rightsholder partner exercises a legal monopoly afforded by modern copyright and inte ...

. The artwork, ruleset, dialog, and other non-engine content of PlaneShift are proprietary

Linux Format ''Linux Format'' is the UK's first Linux-specific magazine, and as of 2013 was the best-selling Linux title in the UK. It is also exported to many countries worldwide. It is published by Future plc (which produces a number of other computer magazi ...

March 2005 Issue 64, Pg 13 and licensed under a custom license: the PlaneShift Content LicensePlaneShift Content License
(PCL). The PCL prevents modifications, redistributions, and assigns the copyright of accepted contributions to Atomic Blue. This license also forbids using the content for profit or for unofficial hosting. The original game idea came from Luca Pancallo in 1994, who released a 2D version in 1996. The development of this game ended 1998 as no commercial support or publisher could be found. In 2000 the development was restarted aiming for a 3D version with an international team of developers. The first major version (0.1) released on May 2, 2002, was codenamed "Atomic Blue". Four different public versions of the game have come out since then, with additional functionality. PlaneShift is currently in the alpha stage of development at version 0.6.3, codenamed "Azure Spirit". The current version "Azure Spirit" was released on April 7, 2014.

Reception

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

lists the game with 56 points from one review from mmorpg.com. PlaneShift has been used in multiple studies regarding development of free software and video games.Free/Open Source Software Development: Recent Research Results and Methods - Advances in Computers, Volume 69, 2007, Pages 243-295 - Walt Scacchi PlaneShift has been also studied as a collaborative software engineering organizational model.Software process modeling by Silvia T. Acuña, Natalia Juristo, Page 14
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References

External links

*
Atomic Blue web site

''PlaneShift'' page at SourceForge
{{DEFAULTSORT:Planeshift (Video Game) MacOS games Linux games Massively multiplayer online role-playing games Open-source video games Role-playing video games Video games developed in the United States 2002 video games Unreal Engine games