It isn't an official stat, just been monitoring it with /who [targetname] or /who game the past few months to see how many players are online.  Also using:
http://laanx.fragnetics.com/index.php?page=char_stats
to check to see who is online and how many are playing.  Offtime is more like weekdays-afterwork/night playing, not really when most everyone is asleep or at work.  And I'm not positive on the EU Offtime stat, since I only play around that time when I take a day off of work.  Does seem they have a bit bigger audience during their evening than US, may be way off on that.  I have definitely seen a pickup as the confidence and stability in the server has been pretty good since the last big crash.  Course we'll see if that theory is accurate as fragnetics has been out of commission for almost 24 hours now.  We'll see what kind of population we get when it comes back online.  Ah, fun stuff.

It is almost back to where the numbers were before that bad server downage, from a U.S. West Coast perspective at least.
Pre outage:
Peak Time (Weekends GMT 20:00-24:00):  150-200
EU Off Time (After work weekdays):  100-120
US Off Time (After work weekdays):  75-100

The following weeks/months after the outage:
Peak Time:  90-130
EU Off Time :  60-90
US Off Time:  40-60

Current:
Peak Time:  ~150
EU Off Time:  100-120
US Off Time:  75-100

With the recent Google video and the long run of stability with at least the server coming back quickly when it did crash, some veterans have returned, but I think it is more new players finding the game.  My buddy list still seems pretty Red when numbers are around 100 online, so means I need to make more and new friends    My theory is you'll always get that flow of new players since it is a free game, but with higher instability the turnover will increase which will counter act that.  I'm sure there is a formula for it somewhere.

The key issue is lag right?  Fix the lag and you can probably organize the guild house with all that stuff pretty nicely, using shelves as weapon racks, closets for armor, crates for food and such.  Me, I say let the Bags of Unlimited Holding reign free!  We'll maybe for a price, say a million trias...

The RP Convenant thread made me think of this, but this is a wish for an "interactive descriptive window" (not sure of the name), bu something to compliment the chat tab window.  I'm thinking it would help with the whole RP rules discussions and players get over the RP hurdle quicker.  I may add this to a Feature Request, but since I'm not much of  RPer, thought I'd see if others would had any input on it.  This would make some changes to the chat GUI, so not sure if that is a no-no topic as well.

My wish is for an interaction window that would help the game be more descriptive/visual.  Right clicking and reading someone's life story has been discussed as too informative, but I think the window should have a descriptive section and an audible section separated, either horizontal or vertically.  It would probably need to be a bit bigger, but the purpose is help describe what I am suppose to be seeing without clogging up the audible part.

A descriptive section can be defined as what I should be seeing, either when I click on something to look directly at it, or just in casual glances, haven't figured that out yet, but mainly all the /me and /my type of descriptions.  The audible section is what I should be hearing, basically what the chat tab is now.  So as I walk around town and "look" at people, the descriptive section will update with what I should be seeing.  This is updated by the player depending on their preference, but it will bring more relevance compared to the right-click description part.  An example is if I'm whistling, /me whistles a slow tune, it stays in my quick "view" description setting so whenever someone clicks on me, their descriptive section of their interaction window updates so they "see" that I am whistling.  This way as someone new comes along, I don't have to retype /me whistles for them to know that I am whistling.

An example of why I think this will help is if I stumble upon a group of players in the sewers standing around and they are roleplaying, I have no idea what is going on.  If they want to include me, we spend 5 minutes discussing in OOC chat of what the scene is suppose to look like.  With the descriptive section, I can click on each player (look at them in otherwords) and I can find out that they are hooded, clothes are torn up, tied up, bleeding from the nose, barely visible (or roll 100 sided dice, if greater than 70, you see me), etc., what have you.  This may make things go more smoothly instead of getting yelled at for interrupting their roleplay when I ask them if they know where I can find some rats and they complain that you can't see us, or are you sure you want to ask a bunch of hoodlum bandits that or I'm knocked unconscious, duhhh!  I know what I am suppose to be seeing around them without interrupting them.

I think this will also help for people that want to be approachable visually, so instead of right clicking on someone to see if they are a person you can talk to or talking to someone that could be afk or busy with something else, you can just update your quick description to /me looks around the plaza with a smile on his face, nodding to the passer byers, or /me hammers out another sword, plopping it down next to an Auction Sign.  Then maybe new players won't be so timid in asking that person some questions when what they "see" is automatically relayed to them in their description section when they simply select the character.  Also, people looking to RP can set up their quick description for anyone walking by to "see" that they may need help instead of having to "fish" for passer-bys to help them out with continuous /me commands.

This may not be too tough to test out and try after looking at some of Caarrie's great mods.  Since /say, /tell, /guild can go to their respective tabs, there can be another code like /des or continue to use /me and /my which will be separated into a description section.  Then just enlarge the chat window and split it, so you can put the sections into different areas within one window, like frames.  Each person can customize it, so they can split it horizontally, in fours, vertically, etc., and show more info in one window instead of having to click around each tab.  Having a System Tab and Guild Tab open side by side for people training and chatting, or a description and Main tab to make a window that may be more favorable for roleplaying.  I'm also thinking that there should be a RP tab and a Main tab, so the whole brackets discussion can be done with.

The discussions on roleplaying and the rules on it are good, but they don't help anyone new in the game when the interface isn't laid out as such.  Maybe if the interface helps support the rules, then it is easier to follow and may improve the experience.  And yes I know people will still type OOC things in the RP window and vice versa, but trying to accomplish multiple things in a Main tab doesn't help with the learning curve for new players.  Long winded, so I'll stop here.

Alf says PvP rules should be consistent everywhere and doesn't know why they are magically different in some areas vs. others, therefore the answer can't be Yes or No as those rules seem to be losely defined, or are they?

Q:  "Can someone remind me why we added such a grind to PlaneShift?"
A:  Because misery loves company?  Gives everyone something to complain about in game and we all come together and share our pain in stories of grinding. 

It'd be an interesting test to max everyone out for a few weeks, make all glyphs available, max every skill that is useable in game, and see what everyone would do.  I thought everyone may get bored or stock up on trias, crafted weapons and pps, but who knows.

Good discussion, actually helped me a bit on why I'm an atheist in game and whatever you want to call it in RL.  The Klyros migration in the History kinda sums it up nicely, they are more "indifferent" to gods, not distrustful or hateful towards them.  I'd say they are a good example of what Atheism is (though maybe they have their own god where they come from, may have missed that part?).  For example, a small bug on the ground may see a Klyros as a god because with one foot, they can end their life, or they can provide the bug with food and shelter, and make the rest of their life comfortable.  But all they are is just another species, not gods.  So gods can be seen the same way, just a different type of species that is as interesting as a small bug (which isn't a put down, just that their existence is as important as any other creature in the universe), but they do not warrant to be worshipped just because they can end or give life, or do whatever they want at their discretion.  Atheism maybe can be seen as just another way of questioning the concept of worshipping something that is conceived as being greater than you.  A false implication to that is that Atheists have no morals or their morals are actually evil in nature.  I think that is competely false, as they can actually have higher morals, especially if you are using Talad and Laanx as moral structures... bunch of spiteful, prima donnas if you ask me.  And if they spite me and erase my existence, it just enforces my case. 

REMINDER:  Treasure Hunt Event
STARTS:  Saturday October 18  18:00 GMT
WHERE: Meet at Laanx Temple
REGISTER:  Celtan or any Hammer before the event starts
REWARD:  More than 150,000 worth of treasure in platinum, gold, gems, and maybe even a special glyph
ENTRY FEE:  5000 2500 trias

HOW:  Solve coded messages and use a map to find where the treasure is.  Check Celtan's coded example to see if you can handle them.
WHO:  All are invited, teams of 2 will be put together at the start of the event.  To make it fair, no two Hammers on a team.
QUESTIONS:  Ask Celtan or a Hammer, read the instructions from Celtan.