Ok, I have not read all the comments to this post so this may have already been posted. PS has a paced combat system in my honest opinion. Unlike the old medieval battles where fighters would swing blades only when they had a chance of hitting their enemy, characters in PS swing constantly causing their stamina to drain quickly. This can be avoided by repetitively stopping and starting combat. All-out fights may only last a few minutes as previously stated but you have to keep in mind PS is not set up for all out fights. It is much more of a stop and go kind of combat system. Medieval battles lasted for hours, this is due to some good strategy of the fighters. In order to maintain constant fighting the troops would have to cycle through positions not unlike a flock of birds. Some fight in the front taking on the worst of the fight while others rest in the back. I think this could be incorporated in some PS group fights if needed to allow people to carry on their combat but it may be difficult to find other players online that have similar training. To be honest, I think the stamina penalties for wearing certain gear are needed but they certainly need balancing. 

Actually the idea that a bullet can knock someone to the ground is mostly myth.  Basic physics dictates that the amount of momentum the bullet can carry must be equal to the momentum pushed back onto the person firing the gun.  Therefore any bullet powerful enough to knock someone over would also knock over the person firing it.

If you don't believe me, the mythbusters mythbusted it.

Some of what I said is personal experience and some is what my friend told me so I can't be sure of it throwing the target (btw idk how heavy of loads this guy used, I was told he bruised his whole shoulder and side up once with one shot when he was playing around with heavy loads in his muzzle loader and he was a big guy.). My personal experience of using modern firearms is that even with a metal but plat I don't fall over when the target does but that is most likely due to were it been hit and the damage done, not the total amount of energy transfered. I forgot that these are old weapons we are talking about that do not have the modern recoil absorption systems like the guns today that can reduce the recoil of a 50 cal into an easily manageable kick and that baby can throw things XD. 

I see what you mean with the details, I just wanted people to see I had looked into it a bit so I didn't have a repeat of the 2005 post.

                                                     (Sorry for the rant, it was inappropriate)

Ok, I understand what you are all saying about the magic making the development of gunpowder pretty pointless to the races of yliakum. However, the magic currently in game to me seems just about as good as a gun that misses 30-40% of the time. Why? Well, instead of giving a magic spell a range of damage it can do, like a weapon, and maybe treating it like physical damage when certain spells are used (fe, flying stones) or have it totally miss/blocked by the target, monsters have been assigned resistances to certain magic ways. I have no problem with adding resistances, however when mobs resist 80%+ of 3 different ways with magic costing as much as it does and you do not get half as good resistance as a monster does when you are maxed and he is only supposed to be adept I think there is something wrong. I have mastered redway, it wasn't easy but I got a good reward for training it. After resistances were assigned to monsters I tried to go hunting, just to find out that the only monster that I could kill with redway that gave me enough progression points were consumers (darkway is just as bad.). Personally I think it was just a cheap, easy, crud nerf as the resistances on most mobs do not make sense at all (consumers are supposed to spend a lot of time underground but are resistant to cw?). If not firearms, PLEASE give me some better bows and arrows to use. Sorry if this is off topic. 

@ Knightspark9, Sorry if I said something without thinking it through very well. I have a cold so I'm having a hard time thinking stuff through thoroughly. I forgot to mention that Harnquist shows he does not like magic and does not trust it in one of his quests. And yes, some races are better at magic than others when it comes to magic. Example, the Lemur make far better mages then the Kran. I would agree that magic is over used but that is more of a balancing problem I believe.

Hello fellow players. I would like to share some research I did and see what other players and maybe a dev or two have to say about it. I know firearms in planeshift sounds like a stretch but please, read what I have written and give an honest constructive opinion if are compelled to reply.

  I know this has been mentioned before back in 2005 but I would like to do a more thorough job at explaining and giving some support for it. I would like to start with a brief look at history. PS’s weaponry that I was able to find dated to either in or close to the 1500th century. Large powder weapons were in use during the 1300th century however they required at least 2 men to use and needed a hefty rest because they weighed so much. In 1600th century the English began using a matchlock musket in their battles that were easier to use but still slow to reload.
 
  Assuming PS follows a similar time line having firearms seems to be a smaller stretch than I first thought. Now if we take into consideration the dwarves’ talents of weapon making and construction combined with their knowledge of extremely strong alloys the idea of them making basic firearms sounds very possible to me. However you still need a propellant to launch your projectile. I have never read anything about gun powder in yliakum however explosions are not unknown, for example the quests from Levrus and Ferryd. If not gun powder perhaps something else can be used in its place.

  As far as how they would work it would seem you would need a load command that takes 20-40 (based on irl) seconds to complete and an quick fire once you click on one of the stance icons or do a /attack command. The time of the reload, the range of the projectile, the damage of the projectile and the area of effect (assuming you use shot) could all be varied by the amount of propellant and the size of the projectile/s and the material they are made of.

  In all honesty I think if wanted we could justify having them in game and we could also justify not having them in game. I do not know what plans have been made so I am just presenting this and eagerly waiting for your replies, sorry I couldn’t make it any shorter. 
 

I don't know how long you have played the game Pakarro but you sound like a noob, devs are always telling use to let them know what we think about new features. So far I have not seen any complaints get any changes making it look like they just want a lot of compliments. Looking at the game and how it has progressed I would say most of the devs have never tried to lvl up a char so they have no idea what its like to play the game. Maybe if they did lvl up a char instead of just spawning one with maxed stats and skills they would see why we are not pleased with sertain changes. We are always being told we can help shape the world of yliakum but new content and projects under way are hidden or atleast realy hard to find any information on. Making if very hard to sugest anything that might fit well or anything that could be changed before it is put in game that will avoid problems later. I have played ps for about 3 years now and agree with most of what Jacula says.

Honestly I think if new players were actualy given a full set of armor and two weapons or a weapon and shield combo of their choice along with a glyph or two of their choice and higher starting stats so they are not stuck killing rats for hours or trying to mine for long periods just to get a few ore (because the skills max lvl has been raised to 200 and all the mobs/jobs made tougher) you would see less players quiting withing the first few hours of gameplay. I agree Vakachehk on the idea of polishing up the questing system and some other things that need fine tuning. I think it should be made more clear in the character creation and on the ps website how sertain things will effect the character. I have seen players joing the game and have to start with nothing because they chose skills that were not even implemented yet.