I don't know why anyone would think that a poor text parser interface would be enjoyable. It's lame and unintuitive. It isn't more advanced or clever in any way, quite the opposite actually. Some pompous "elitists" seem to think that an outdated interaction system somehow means it's "realistic" but that isn't the case at all. It's more of a newbie approach. After playing some text adventure and MUD games before and after solving their quests, it didn't make a text parser system any more appealing than a more intuitive dialogue-tree approach. And their key word/phrase database was a lot better than PlaneShift's. There is nothing "natural" in typing robotic phrases to dummy NPCs who do not understand you half the time because of their limited vocabulary. It's neither natural nor interesting.

Every NPC still has to be pre-programmed with a specific choice of trigger words/phrases and responses, so you are still making a choice by guessing. If you guess a pre-programmed choice (woopie!), you get a response. If you don't, there isn't anything amazing or interesting that happens. The only thing you get is some boring and irrelevant "Could you rephrase that?" line, which isn't a natural conversation. A dialogue-tree system affords much more natural dialogue choices instead of robotic phrases, and you know they'll work and always have a relevant response.

The point is you will never be able to pre-program every possible word or phrase combination for NPCs, especially not being a commercial team, so they will never sound natural but their "Could you rephrase that?" line will sure remind you of the fact that you're talking to a wooden lifeless dummy.

Also, instead of having to exit out or alt-tab out of the game to read through a boring quest log text file every time you need to remember what was said, some sort of in-game quest journal that automatically keeps a record of your dialogue would be better. Plus, a dialogue-tree system would simply start off from the last conversation you had with an NPC, giving you relevant choices.

Having said that, it seems that PlaneShift team would rather be stuck with an outdated and boring system than listen to player feedback.

This is how Warhammer Online plans to do it (flash video):

Standards & Heraldry

Anyone remember Merlin, or gandalf, or Raislin for that matter.

For every Merlin and Gandalf, there are Conan and Robin. And for every Raistlin there is Caramon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raistlin_Majere

He is also condescending, extremely resents his lack of physical strength and often relies on his twin brother for support. This generates feelings of resentment and jealousy more than feelings of affection and gratitude. To be exact, Raistlin harbors a secret hate for his twin’s physical power, and for the attention and comradeship it seems to earn him, which Raistlin’s own appearance and secretive nature denies him. Also of note, in SoulForge Raistlin develops a short-lived affection for a local town girl. He, already envious of his brothers popularity, stumbles upon his brother having sexual relations with the woman to whom his affections had been directed.

Powerful mages are supposed to be able to turn any onery dwarf into a crispy critter in moments.

Powerful warriors are supposed to be able to crack the same dwarf's skull or a squishy mage's skull and resist or reflect a hostile spell back to its source in moments.

SO, a fighter can kill one in a single second, maybe 2, and what, a mage can't be allowed to do the same, in twice the time?

Your mage = squishy/dead, while a fighter you're facing is not.

A spell-eater/spell-reflector gear that hurls the spells back at the source and kills it "in a single second, maybe 2" or "in twice the time" -- 'nuff said.

Factor in the cost of becoming said 'uber' mage, theres only like about 15 players that high imo.  Could be wrong, there could be more.  As for the ways being similar, lol, not even close, Brown Way's flying stones is about 4 times as strong as max DW Taste of Death, while CW is twice as stong at least as DW.  While it is all imblalanced, i don't see how reducing it's effectiveness would make it a better experience for PS players, since many wish to be mages

And many do not...

and well, what you sujest seems to give the advantage to fighters, which, sorry to say, just swing bits of metal at a beast, while being a mage takes true studies

Just swinging bits of wood at a beast instead takes "true studies", indeed...

I think actually doubling the max value for magic would make it more balanced, make it take much longer to gain high ranks, since a mage, basically studies his whole life if he/she's anything serious about it, while making the combat skills slightly faster in gain, since it's pretty much all practice, with theory reserved for tactics mostly.

Waving a wand in the air is a serious business...

I personally don't care, since my in-game character can battle in many different ways. However, this poster's "logic" was so laughable that I wanted to give him a taste of his own "medicine".