Planet of Dreams - 2nd RCE game besides EU

Hello everyone,
I would like to create this thread to discuss and perhaps answer questions about another RCE game that exists besides EU.
It is called Planet of Dreams and is being developed by a single developer who is a former EU and AW player :)

PoD has been running for around 3+ years now, and there are many EU players who have joined it and know of it, also there are many former AW players who have joined, especially after AW was shutdown.

It is an RCE game, and allows deposits and withdraws through paypal. In the game's forum there is a section where players can post their finished withdrawls so that everyone can see it and thus verify the game's RCE nature.

There are 3 character classes available, Warrior-Medic-Miner so you have to create 3 different avatars in it, each being in a separate class and thus you have to lvlup 3 different avatars depending on which one's gameplay you like best, or which one you think is more profitable. Each class has different gameplay , warrior can only hunt with melee, medic has only ranged attack and miner....well miner does the mining lol. Also, each class has different loot tables from the mobs and different nightmares (BP's) to craft.
For example, if you want to craft emery tools (weapon enhancers), you will need a high lvl warrior for that but if you want to craft support plates (armour enhancers) you will need a high lvl medic for that. And if you want to craft weapons and armour, then you need a miner of lvl16+ to do it.

Currently, there are 2 different areas (continents) in-game, with a 3rd continent being already in development and much much anticipated by most players :)) The first area (main) is where all players start and can be called the "free to play" area. It contains "easy" to kill mobs and warriors can kill them just using their fists with no need for weapons or armour. However, the starter area contains some loot which can be found ONLY there and so there is a perpetual need-demand for it from the high lvl players since most of them like to play in the "big boys" area lol which is Narrow Valleys, the 2nd continent.
NV (Narrow Valleys) is the continent with the "regular" mobs, ppl need to use weapons and wear armour to hunt there since the mobs are impossbile to kill naked using your bare fists. However, it is the area where the mobs global and hof and ATH :)) and it is our usual hunting place to grind and level up. In addition, it also contains some loot which can be found ONLY in that area, so there is again a perpetual need-demand for it but from the new-ish players this time.

Further more, I would like to expand a bit on the game's crafting system which is VERY different to what most of us are used to. In PoD, you have to craft manually, you got to actually click each component of the crafting recipe to complete the item, which is a rather difficult and certainly time consuming process. There is ofc an option to create the items instantly but that option has 2x the normal cost so this sort of forces you to make some choices-decisions when you decide to start crafting :)

And to sum it up, I would like to mention some of the game's positive and negative aspects, though those are just my personal opinions and I strongly encourage you all to join it and form your own opinions.

Negative
- It has bad graphics, and i mean BAD. It is developed in Unity by a single developer, and he is always adding new content and items and crafting recipes so the graphics update keeps being postponed. And to make matters even worse, almost ALL the players (me included) are pressuring him to add new content and forget the graphics, but that has a result of the graphics being STILL terribly bad even after so many years.
- It is a single instance game, meaning that each of us plays in his own "dream" and so we cant see the other avatars. Sure there is global chat, pm, auction, orders, p2p trades, real-time competitions/events but still, you CAN'T see the other avatars.
(Imho, this is a good thing cause I never have to worry about mob stealing or loot stealing or harassment in PoD, but it is true that most players dont like this aspect of the game so I put it in the negatives list)
- Low player base. Yes, not many ppl are active daily, not many ppl are grinding it 24-7 unless there is some big event going on.
-Small economy size. This is mostly due to the fact that not many players are active daily and also because PoD is in essence a low cost to play game. If we were able to compare it to EU's size of economy and cost to play, I would guess it is 1/100 and quite possibly 1/1000 of EU's size.....now.
-Time consuming. The characters leveling speed isnt same for all 3 classes, medic lvls up quite "fast" but warrior lvling is a slow process and miner lvling is a very sloooooow process. It aint like EU ofc, you dont need years to get to high lvl characters but you DO need months of ACTIVELY playing.

Positive
- Low cost. It has very low cost to play, especally when compared to EU. Also, by making use of a game's specific mechanism, it can be argued that in PoD the cost to play actually LOWERS the higher your character lvl is and the bigger mobs you hunt !!
-Super fast deposit and wihdrawls since the game uses Paypal. EVERY deposit AND withdrawl is usually completed in LESS than 24-48 hours !!!!
- Character levels actually have a purpose. In PoD, you have to get to a higher lvl to be able to use the bigger DPS sword and wear the bigger protection armour and improve your eco. Your character level is of outmost importance and you actually HAVE to get them to higher levels. And it doesnt have any ESI's to transfer exp, so you got to do it yourself grind grind grind :))
- L economy. Yes, every item in PoD is Limited. You got to gather/buy/trade the mats to make them, and after you still got to gather/buy/trade more mats to make some more once they are decayed and dissapear. There exist only a handful of Unlimited items but even the UL items can't be repaired just by using $$, they also require an in-game loot to be repaired, which you got to hunt for and trade/buy if you want to keep repairing your ul item if you are lucky enough to have looted one.
- Very nice and helpful community. Sure there arent many active players most of times (depending on your time zone) but still, most of them are very helpfull, especially to new players.
- LOTS of content. At the start, players like to play just a warrior and just kill kill kill mobs, which I have to agree is quite tiresome-boring. But as soon as you start a medic and especially a miner, and start getting into crafting, then the game is far far more complex than you thought at first. It may seem simple at the start, but is anything but simple as you will definetly find out the more you play and level-up.
- LOOT. Well, that can't be a positive aspect since every game has loot lol. But here is the thing, in PoD, you actually NEED the damned loot. Every ore a miner digs up has a use, and most of times you need more and more of it so you can keep crafting and lvling up. Sure some loot doesnt have a wide-spread use (yet) so you can just gather 1k of it and be done for a while, but most of it you usually need to get more and more and more :)
- NO big secrets. Just by visiting the game's webpage, you can see how many total player accounts have been created, how many different players were logged in today and the last 100 sales from the auction. The dev has created a player account and he (sometimes) logs in and plays like us but this is also seen in the web-page and is public knowledge, no hidden company avatars and such.

Of course there are more things to write, positive and negative but I strongly advise you to try it out yourselves and form your own opinions :)

The game's web page where you can download it is www.amirgames.com and , since the game supports lifetime referrals, when it asks you for a referral ID I would be much obliged if you could enter mine, which is the number 366.

It is not needed to enter referral ID ofc but I would be much obliged if you did :)
And if there are any questions or you just wish to discuss it further. please post in this thread and I will try to help.

John

 

Well, it is time consuming indeed. Granted it wont require years of gameplay to reach high lvls but it DOES require you to spend time lvling up, especially if you decide to lvlup ALL 3 character classes, which btw I highly recomend cause it gives you very differential gameplay, lets you enjoy all the game's aspects and is also much more economical since by lvling all 3 classes you are able to craft your own staff most of times and won't have to resort to buying everything from other players.

And for the most impatient players amongst us, there is a "shortcut" called power pills, which you can buy/trade from other players. These pills can be used ONLY in the starter area and give a tremendous boost to the warrior's dmg for a duration of 20minutes so he can lvlup very fast and move on to the next continent (Narrow Valleys) in a day or even less just by using 5-10 of these pills. However I would advise NOT to just go and start using them but instead take your time playing in the "free to play" area, chat, read some guides and in general check things out.

As to how much time is needed, well in this sense I guess it is similar to EU.
You can go slow or can go fast, whichever you prefer and/or your game budget allows :)
As an example, I remember a new player who joined during the Xmas event, well he somehow managed to get a warrior to lvl36 in 1 week !!!! He just bought the next bigger sword-armour as soon as he could use it and killed the biggest mobs he could handle, and then bought the next set and so on so on. He didint bother playing a medic nor a miner, so he made it to lvl36 in a record time of 1 week and after.......just stopped playing !!

I also agree about the melee warrior part lol, my warrior has decayed countless armours by having to play only melee, especially when he is grinding the big lvl mobs which have aggro range similar to Atrox !! And this is actually quite good now lol especially if you consider that some months ago after a vu, those big lvl mobs had their aggro range increased , similar to spiders. Those were some crazy grinding weeks indeed, one L armour didin't even last 1 hour gameplay when hunting those mobs lool.
It is all part of the gameplay though, when ppl want to and prefer to use ranged, they can always switch to and play their medics :)

 

Those are some very good points you raise and I agree with you 100%. Fortunately, from the little knowledge I have, the game's server is totally seperate from the developer's residence and most likely in a different country.
There have been 2 instances in the past year, during which the developer had informed us that he would be without internet-access due to some construction workings in his area. During those 2 times that he was offline for many days (up to 5-7 days if i recall correct), the game server was up and running without any problems or down-time, the only problems were a delay for deposits-withdrawls as he was unable to check and process them and also delays in forum registration approvals.

I would very much like to see the game being developed by a team of developers and even better by a company but that is not the case here, not yet at least.
However, if I may be so bold to pointout, that doesn't exaclty give us much guarantees, does it ?
I look at EU and Mindark and still I don't feel 100% secure, especially after reading the EULA. And from what I read on forum's, other ppl are of like mind, so in the end you can safely say that both are a risk, a risk we take by playing these RCE games and deciding to spend our $$ and precious time.
So I would advise to just take it slow at the start, spend some time reading and chatting and lvling up, and perhaps later decide to just spend like 5-10$ to try out some later parts of the gameplay.
That is afterall exactly how I started, and I havent regretted it one bit since I fell in love with PoD :))

 

Lol, yes I agree that those power pills are quite AWESOME :)) However I should warn you, they work ONLY in the 1st continent, the starter area and NOT in Narrow Valleys :) So in effect, you will be taking "some" power pills ( if you decide thus) to enter the land of "low-middle skilled" :P There are 20 mob lvls in NV (Narrow Valleys) with increasing difficulty and it will take much much more things than just 5-10 power pills to be able to comfortably grind the big mobs, especially if you want to be eco about it.

As to if it is worrying or not the fact that he quit, well I have no idea what to say. I heard from the other players that he said he had RL issues and was quitting PoD and EU at that time but I can't know for sure. Many guys (and ofc ladies) have joined and left very fast, or stayed-lvled up lots and then quit, or went on a break or are still playing. Each has his/her own reasons and player retention is indeed a problem in lots of games, especially EU and ofc PoD as well.

 

He is using Unity to develop the game

 

You have some very good points San and I think your concerns are valid. Sadly I have no knowledge of the developer's residence and/or situation in regards to his country's......past troubles.

 

I am glad you liked it :D I started same as you, slowly lvling up while at the same time doing other things (like mining in EU lol) but after some weeks when I got at higher levels it started getting very very interesting and I ...got hooked :)

Thank you very much for such a nice offer. I will send an email to the dev to inform him :)

No Jamira, I dont think you will be alone playing in PoD but I get your point, and I agree, it will be very different and much much less populated to what you are probably used to.
And yes, the graphics are bad, terribly bad actually.
And ofc you shouldn't pay money doing something that you don't like and/or enjoy.
But there are challenges to find in PoD, just of a different kind ;) Even if you get to high level characters like some players have already, there are still goals to achieve and obstacles to overcome but that is mostly a matter of personal opinion. Some players are content to reach a certain point and then just relax and/or take a break till the next interesting thing comes along, nothing wrong with that at all :D

 

That is a very interesting concept, so all these beautifull pictures you posted are in fact graphics made by players, game mods. That is a smart move made by the company, Bethesda, to attract their players even more and give them more things to do regarding the game, not by playing the game but by modding it.
I am unsure if the same could be applied to RCE games because of the real money involved in the actual game, but I would guess that graphics should be safe to share and give ability to players to mod or change or upgrade (however I have zero knowledge of coding so I could be way wrong in this)
Thank you very much Jamira, and if you ever change your mind or want to try something different to what you usually play , you are welcome to give PoD a shot and see if you like it :)) (Just try to ....NOT look at its graphics :P)

 

Gz for lvl5 so soon Spawn, that is good progress :)
But I have to warn you, leveling will not be so fast later on, especially after lvl16+ ;) If you need any help regarding the game or have any questions, pls don't hesitate to ask.