Most all know that lag is a BIG problem. This is not about that. This is about ping delay and fairness. And I will add, this is not about my system because it far exceeds even the suggested requirements.

Problem:

Dlayos are harder to fight (yes intentionally, maybe so as to be fought with a group), but I have noted that some players can take them down themselves without damage to themselves and apparently as had been done before. I cannot though. The lag is so great when I try to fight a Dlayo (and any other tough npc and players) that I cannot get a hit in and they strike me before I can attempt a dodge. Two hits and the Dlayo kills me (I have level 150 axe and level 100 heavy armor with the best equipment). I am stuck there not really doing much because of the lag and delay. And just forget about PvP at this time (but not to worry as I can still take care of myself with magic even though lots of lag there too.) I can even kill the Dlayo with magic, just can't run around as well while doing so.

I believe there to be three parts to this problem.

1) lag - there is still some serious lag. But this is not about that and I feel the devs will get that fixed at some point. (Please especially check out the Outpost and Camp Banishment. I cannot even approach those places without lagging to a standstill.) But this is not about that.

2) ping - It is a known fact that the further one is from the server the more ping delay they will have. This can't be helped and is just part of the baseline to work with.

3) design (for lack of a better name) - example: Dlayos are given certain programing to make them do their thing.

The result here is that depending on the ping delay that one may have, they are limited in fighting both npc and PvP. (Please keep in mind we are not talking lag which is assumed will be fixed.) The more advanced design does make npc and PvP fighting more challenging and more fun. However the one with the smallest ping delay will always have the advantage, an advantage in looting and in PvP dueling. I believe this to be unfair and not in agreement with the nature of PlaneShift.

A suggestion for a solution:

A common delay could be added to all, making the various ping delays insignificant. This would "slow" the gaming a bit and is not the approach other games take. However this could provide an even playing field for all independent of their physical location (distance from the server). With such a common delay the tougher npc, especially the Dlayos, can be re-designed to work well, acceptable with this common delay. I believe the fairness created by this, especially with PvP, would be far more valuable than having the latest high-teck movements. Further I believe more players would value this equality, bringing more into the game as well as providing an even playing field for RP. (I am still one who greatly enjoys RP with PvP action.)

thanks

I have lowered the value of a pair of axes and a pair of sabers by repairing them. It seems there may be some bug involved. The axes were 299/300 and repaired to 296/296. The sabers were 290/291 repaired to 284/284.  I am level 50 in weapon repair.

I am on a Mac Book Pro, dual Intel core, 4GB, with a NVIVIA GeForce 8600M GT (ROM revision 3212).

Several crashes, shader glitches and out-of-bounds loops (which eventually prevented me from logging back in until a GM relocated me) all varied and progressively got worse until now the problems seem stable. However (and this seems the unique thing) when I log one character and then log out and log in another character, then problems differ, and they do this consistently.

With the first character the world look ok except I am a ghostly yellow and blue nothing and all the npc are gone, and no players can be seen, as well as items like bottles on shelfs in the arena. (However I can communicate with players.) I cannot target anything except for myself. Also the shape of my character reacts like an out of bounds are leaving the pointer image everywhere as I mouse over that spot.

With the second character (using a different account), the world has the problem of not have any graphics except for the initial screen shot which gets covered by the pointer or npc figures as I mouse or move. I can see weapons in my hands clearly. My body as well as npc are just dark forms, but the npcs are there and I can target them (but I cannot target myself). I do not know about other players because none were near.

Please let me know if you want copies of console info (lots). Also I completely removed all PS files and stuff from my system (including the stubborn font which required a re-boot before it could be deleted). I then downloaded a fresh version and installed it. I changed the read/write access as had been suggested by some and ran the launcher, got updates, then ran the program. The many same crashes as observed by others occurred, but the point here is that using this same program and logging in (not simultaneously, but sequentially alternating), I got quite different results as explained above.  I cannot find any reason for the difference from my system so suspect that maybe some user-unique information stored on the server might contribute to the differences and perhaps to the shader problems as well.

It is my hope that this little piece of information may give some idea to a developer in their work to fix things. I await the opportunity to once again play. Thanks.