OK, I know there is walktest to view CS maps, but planeshift may or may not have the same walking physics, plus we may have other movements types like flying or mounts, and a map designer may want to test their map using the same physics/camera modes, etc.. as planeshift.

I think NPC monsters should be both smarter and dumber when it comes to following players that have run away.

First of all, there needs to be a limit to the distance NPC\'s will follow a player. After this distance, they will stop following and return to their spawn point. In addition, If an NPC looses line of sight from you, they should only remember the last place they saw you, and go there. If when they get there they don\'t have line of sight, then they should stop following, because they shouldn\'t know where you are. In both cases, they should remember any players that attacked them or that they attacked or started chasing for a short while. They should then occasionally check to see if any of those players are within line of sight again, and begin chasing them again (closest one first, or by some WoW-like aggro level system) if they are.

The distance limit is important for one thing because in places like the open terrain npc monsters will chase players across the whole map, and then you end up with like ubernaughts in the forest path killing newbies (and even not-so-newbies for that matter). The line of sight stuff just makes them more realistic.

You could, if you wanted, create a waypoint system in all the maps and use advanced pathfinding, and in some cases make an exception to the line of sight rule if, for example, an npc chases you around a corner of the sewers and they lose sight of you, but there is only one place you could have gone. they could then chase down a little farther looking for you before giving up.

I don\'t think there should be any skill limits to the races. For example the player\'s guide says that kran\'s will have a limit of 7 to magic skills and lemurs will have a similar limit to armor and weapons. I think this goes against the basic goal of the PS skill system, that is that you are given freedom to evolve your character however you want, regardless of what options you choose at the beginning. Maybe you\'re a fighter that wants to dabble in magic, or vise versa.

Instead, I think races should have skill affinities and (insert word meaning opposite of affinity lol)s. They would basically take less or more PP per skill level. So for example Krans might take twice as many PP to learn magic ways as most other races. Lemurs would take twice as many PP to learn weapons. Nothrils would take half as many PP to learn blue way spells. Etc.. That way, you could potentially overcome a race\'s deficiencies, but it would take a lot of work and money to do so.

-Miya

I\'m just wondering how to disable CS\'s need to pause every time I switch applications. I tried one code change but all that seemed to do was stop it from changing the window title. It still pauses. Any ideas?

He wasn\'t going to stop,
I could see it in his eyes -
intent, hatred, confidence.
His blade dripped blood on my conscience.
Not again...
His smile mocked me.
Not again....
But he was someone\'s child,
someone\'s baby, like my own.
Someone held him in their arms
when the darkness frightened him.
But this pleasant memory was lost to him now...
Not again...
Step, step, smile,
He wasn\'t going to stop,
So I stopped him,
and held him as the darkness came.

[edit: I did not mean that this poem is being spoken by Miya. The true narrator should be unknown at this point]

[some notes before you start. Triste rhymes with yeast, and Sayli is pronounced \"sai lee\" sai as in the japanese sword. Oh, and the entire scene takes place underwater]

Part 1, the Abyss

The water buzzed with the sound of two young Nothrir girls chatting on their swim home from their first day at the academy. Sayli, the older of the two sisters, had received a necklace as a gift that day, and Triste, the younger sister, wanted to try it on.

\"Come on Sayli, I just want to wear it for a little while, just till we get home, jeez what\'s the problem?\"

\"It\'s mine that\'s the problem. Get your own necklace, \" Sayli replied, putting her thumb on her nose (a slightly snooty Nolthrir gesture).

Triste scrunched her face and frowned, \"Come on, if you don\'t I\'ll tell Mom about your little boyfriend!\"

\"You wouldn\'t\"

\"Hehe, you\'re right I wouldn\'t. But come on, just for a little while? It\'s so pretty!\"

\"Oh come on it\'s just a stupid necklace why do you want it so badly?\"

\"If it\'s so stupid then what\'s the big deal?\"

\"Oh fine, you silly little fish,\" Sayli said, smiling, as she took off the necklace and handed it to Triste. It got stuck on her long pointed ear as she slipped it over her head, but eventually she got it on and smiled, swimming around gracefully showing it off to her sister.

\"Damn it Triste it looks better on you than it does on me!\"

\"hehehe yup, but hey just remember, he gave it to yuuuu, his \'loooooverfish\' hehe\" Triste said with teasing laugh.

\"oh stop..\" Sayli said with a little blush, flaring her gills.

\"Speaking of fish, I\'m hungry aren\'t you?\"

\"Ya now that you mention it, we should be getting home or we\'ll be late.\"

\"oh here Sayli, have your necklace back. You should probably hide it before Mom sees it and starts asking questions,\" Triste said as she tried to take off the necklace. One of its oddly shaped pieces got stuck on one of her long ears, however, and she dropped it. It fell fast, spiraling into the darkness below and disappeared. The two sisters floated in silence looking down into the dark abyss, \"oh Sayli... I\'m so sorry...\"

\"Oh pah, let\'s just swim down and get it, we\'re not far from the bottom anyway\"

\"But we\'re not supposed to go down there, it\'s dangerous\"

\"Come on Triste, it will only be a minute we\'ll get it and come back up what\'s the big deal?\"

\"... oh all right.\"

The light from above faded as they swam deeper and deeper into the abyss. When they finally reached the bottom, Sayli stopped swimming and took a ball of moss from her pack. She held it up to her mouth and breathed water into it, causing the bioluminescent moss to light up, casting clear white light down onto a dark hole in the stone below next to a large, perfectly round boulder, and they could just see a feint sparkle inside the hole.

\"I think it\'s in there Sayli.\"

\"figures,\" said Sayli before swimming into the hole.

\"Be careful Sayli\"

\"Ya ya... just hold that light up so I can see ok?\"

Triste lowered the moss into the hole as Sayli swam into it, lighting up a large round cavern underneath. There were large gashes and scratches all over the walls. A shiver went through Sayli\'s spine as she looked around for her necklace. There was a small platform at the bottom of the cavern carved out of stone, with strange runes and diagrams etched onto its surface with a precision Sayli had never seen before, and right in the center, was her necklace. She grabbed it quickly and began to swim up, happy to be leaving this creepy place, when suddenly she felt something brush her arm, like thin hair waving in the water, and as she looked up slowly, she saw a woman floating above her with her back towards her.

\"Triste? Triste is that you?\" she said, a tone of fear in her voice as the woman was not moving. She reached out and turned the woman towards her, and the light slowly revealed the shriveled skin of the dead woman\'s face clinging to its skull. Sayli immediately recognized the face... it was her own face. She screamed and flailed madly, trying to swim up and out of there fast, but just before she reached the opening she felt a cold, bony hand wrap around her ankle, pulling her down. The hand gripped tightly, and felt like ice against her skin, drawing in all heat. A sinking cold feeling of despair washed over her as she felt her strength leaving her.

With the last of her strength, she reached up and screamed for help, and suddenly felt Triste\'s hands pulling hers up out of the hole. The hand had let go of her ankle, and Sayli felt her strength return and quickly rolled the boulder over the entrance to the cavern, blocking it. The two sisters floated in place for a minute, flaring their gills. Triste was the first to speak.

\"What happened down there?\"

\"Didn\'t you see it?\" Sayli said with a quivering voice.

\"See what?\"

\"There was... a dead woman down there..... and.. it.. it looked like me Triste. it had my face!\"

\"Sayli I didn\'t see anything and I was looking at you the whole time. I was trying to talk to you but you wouldn\'t answer I was starting to get worried.\"

\"It grabbed me around the ankle, see?\" Sayli pulled her pant leg up and saw a small green scar faintly glowing around her ankle, then looked up at Triste, \"see it left a scar on my ankle\"

\"What scar, I don\'t see a scar Sayli\"

Sayli looked again, but the scar wasn\'t there, \"I.. I don\'t understand.. I just don\'t understand..\"

Sayli began shivering and was starting to cry, but Triste quickly wrapped her arms around her in a warm hug.

\"It\'ll be ok Sayli, we just need to get you home ok? Come on, let\'s just swim home, we\'ll be there in no time ok?\"

\"o.. ok...\"

The two sisters began their journey home, and when they arrived Triste made up an excuse for their lateness, something about a spell gone wrong and Sayli needing rest, but her sleep would be far from peaceful, and although she didn\'t know it yet, Sayli\'s nightmares were about to become very real....

To Be Continued....

I\'ve seen a lot of arguments in this forum about such and such fantasy icon not existing in the PS universe. The problem with this is that it is still very early, and the PS universe hasn\'t been fully defined yet. There is still a LOT of room for new concepts and aspects of the planeshift universe to be fleshed out.

One of the things I like about planeshift is the attempt to be unique and to avoid extremely common fantasy world aspects, like dragons and orcs, etc... Perhaps it has failed in some respects, such as having dwarven, elven, and cat-people characters, but that doesn\'t mean we can\'t still try to adhere to this direction when roleplaying.

Now, when it comes to roleplaying, I generally take a very open ended stance. I think people should be allowed a lot of freedom to roleplay as they like, whether they are new at roleplaying or experienced, good or bad (not saying all experienced roleplayers are good or newbies bad), and be able to roleplay casually or seriously. So take the above as more of a suggestion than a rule per say. It doesn\'t take many limitations and rules before you being to seriously stifle creativity which is what roleplaying is all about.

That said, I do want to make the open suggestion that people \"start from scratch\" when it comes to characters, creatures, etc.. in planeshift. By that I mean try to just throw away most of the popular rpg and fantasy lore, forget you ever read Tolkien(sp?) or Vampire Chronicals, or played D&D, and remember that we are creating a whole new world here.

Now, as an example of this, let\'s take a look at vampires in planeshift. A few people have argued to great lengths (and with short tempers) for and against vampire roleplay in planeshift. Some people who\'ve been in support of vampire roleplay actually yell at people who try to make a unique spin on vampires for planeshift, citing some vampire reference or another as they way they SHOULD be done.

Well, vampire roleplay is fun, but obviously it has been done to death, and very unoriginal. But, here\'s an alternative:

Vampires can represent a lot of things. Fundamentally, they can represent secret societies, corruption of a person\'s soul (a hunger for \"carnal\" pleasures, taken to the extreme), or a \"curse\" or \"punishment\" for a past misdeed (or the misdeed of an ancestor) by a higher being. Now, given those elements and what we have of the planeshift\'s background, we have a lot of possibilities. To start out with, we have the Red Way, a dark sect of magic that has corrupting effects on the caster and her victims. Some of the dark way spells absorb life and magical energy from the victim. In addition, the planeshift universe has multiple gods (three were mentioned in the background), so it\'s possible that an outside dark god or goddess is secretly creating a sect of followers within the general population. Perhaps this goddess curses her followers, so that they must do her bidding or suffer dire consequences. So already you can see there are a lot of alternate possibilities rather than simply roleplaying as a \"vampire\".

Anyway, just wanted to put that out there.
- Miya