PS Building FAQs

Here we are trying to answer some frequently asked questions related to PlaneShift's CVS code and content.

1: What's in the "planeshift" database?
A:
PlaneShift uses a data driven engine, which uses a database named "planeshift" on MySQL. This database contains data about all the Quests, NPC Responses, Accounts, Items, etc. It means that you can add Quests, Items, and Weapons etc. to the game without even touching the code.

2: How can I edit the database?
A:
You can use some MySQL front-end client that let you edit MySQL databases. I recommend MySQL Control Center. If you want a more sophisticated tool, you can use PHP My Admin. If you don't have an Apache server you might want to use instead EasyPhp, which contains also PhpMyAdmin. Be aware that manual editing of tables is difficult as they are interconnected deeply. Planeshift offers also a Server Console, specific for Planeshift database, that you can find under /planeshift/www/serverconsole directory.

3: How do I solve errors like 'Cannot load some plug in' while running PlaneShift?
A:
You get these errors because PlaneShift cannot find some CS or CEL plugins. So be sure that you have correctly setup the Environment Variables or that the plugin that you cannot find has been compiled fine.

4: What's psnpcclient?
A:
It's the NPC client that controls NPCs and performs NPC AI.

5: What's pawseditor?
A:
pawseditor is used to edit PlaneShift GUI widgets.

6: What's eedit?
A:
EEdit stands for Effects Editor; it is used to edit effects.

7: What is cURL for?
A:
The updater uses cURL for communicating with the update repository.

8: Art and Data in CVS repository is old, why not have have latest PS Art?
A:
PS art and data is not available in CVS since it is licensed, what is available is some old art, coming from older versions of PS. As you can see, neither the maps are available. If we put it in CVS repository we'll lose the license, as SourceForge servers require all material to be under some opensource type license.
So if you want to play the game just run the updater (for updating just the licensed material) or copy current art and data from binary release.

9: (Win32 Related) After building CVS PlaneShift I am having wierd problems running the binary release of PlaneShift, what's wrong?
A:
Unfortunately sometimes you have to delete the CRYSTAL and CEL environment variables before playing the released Crystal Blue binaries. This is because you've set CRYSTAL and CEL environmental variables, so the binary client looks for CS and CEL DLLs first in directories pointed by those environment variables instead of its own directory. If you want, you can create a batch file for running the binary client, in which you specify that there shouldn't be any CRYSTAL and CEL environmental variables.

10: I've built the psclient successfully but when I connect to the Laanx server it says I have different version of client, why do I get this?
A:
CVS version of client and server are updated every now and then and on some changes made on server requires a change of the net version of client. You cannot connect to a server if the net version of your client doesn't match the one of the server you are trying to connect. So when net version of client in CVS changes you cannot connect to official Laanx server until it's updated.

11: Why is the world so different when I connect to my local server instead of Laanx?
A:
As PS is data driven so your local server uses local 'planeshift' database that is dummy (for testing purposes) and it is totally different from Laanx database. You can never have our private data.