I'm sorry PheonixRizin if I made you sad. I am sad when I read all of this. I know I appear as a troll sometimes. But I love this project, and I have met many worthwhile people over the years. Many of whom have left, and a number of them I still talk to. There is no place like PlaneShift, and I like it the way it is. But the community needs help. The game is only going to get better, albeit slowly, and there is nothing at any time that stops one from going in game and seeking RP with people. But if your standards are going to be sooo high, or conversely, if you want to treat roleplayers like idiots... then how can you ever have fun here?

On the contrary, that is my point exactly. My discussion was mainly about labels, and the reason for all this mess is the way people separate themselves into groups. Most of my fun stopped when this "grouping" became as apparent in game as it did out of it. If you still have fun in PS, then great. It's a game, you are supposed to enjoy it. However, my point, which may be lost again, is that all sides kinda hops into the "I'm right, you're wrong" category, though it's usually those labeled as "RP Nazi" who get the blame. Those who know/knew me IG know that I Rped with pretty much anyone, no matter what their level or style. Standards will always vary, but as soon as people get thrown into groups (RPer, PLer), then thats when the divide becomes strongest. I reposted my earlier quote (I hope you read the post in full) because despite what I said, there was a conscious decision to further the divide. So if anything, seeing THAT is what makes me sad, not someone who actually wants the divide to disappear.

Okay....here we go...

Trust is the root issue here. Since there is mass hate (and haters are indeed gonna hate), there are no opportunities for truly spontaneous RP. As an Outlaw, one of the first things we have to teach people who join is how to initiate a robbery OOCly (or murder etc.). The reason for this is because nobody wants to be robbed/killed OOCly, and as true anywhere, people fail to separate their characters from themselves. So when a robbery happens, they feel like they -really- were robbed. This leads to people being OOC out for blood. It's the same reason why most RP fights suck, because most can't stand an IC loss OOCly. The other problem is, unfortunately, that while the character in question was willing to return the stuff in an RP, there are indeed those who do it to sell the items for IG money, or to be annoying. While with the Red Crystal Den, there was definitely concern for people who may log out in the den, then log in during off hours to clean it out, as we were very careful to always lock up every day. Now, if indeed the player was banned without any talks with the GMs about his intentions, then there is an issue with it. BUT perhaps it would be wise for the player who does this to inform the robbed, even if it's after the fact, so they know that they shouldn't take it personal. Again, this is a game, and as I've read in countless MMORPG forums, we should all know to separate the game from real life. But, it happens. The banhammer probably came swiftly due to the negative PR the game has been getting (both deservedly and undeservedly), and if it appears that they allow griefing (intentional or unintentional) it creates more bad press.

Another huge reason for the state of things IMO (and I've seen it in other games as well), is *GW Bush word coming* GUILDIFICATION. What this new invented term means is that guilds are growing strongly OOCly instead of ICly, mainly based on game theory instead of game settings. In essence, while players who have voiced there opinion and left have been deemed the "Nazis", PS has been growing many small (or large) "Nazi" groups for a while now, whether its the "RP Nazi", the "PL Nazi", the "I want to be a Paladan who cares if this isn't Warcraft Nazi", the "Don't Discuss Other Projects While You're Here Nazi", etc. There is no one person or group to blame. These groups VERY OBVIOUSLY formed, and it was ALLOWED to perpetuate to the point where the community divides became strong. Real life example: Democrats and Republicans. No matter if one side comes up with a positive solution to make change, the other party is likely to side against it to advance their own side. This game is no different. Most have taken a side, and they will stick to it, and whether liked or not, the GM Position will always be a side. And when devs/testers/gms are calling players Nazis, they are putting the community at arms length and dividing it further by adding fuel to the fire. The GMs -and- the players need to take responsibility in this. Players need to stop dividing and start uniting, and GMs need to stop using banning/kicking/censorship to threaten its community instead of using forums like these where players discuss their differences to find the root cause. Because while it's easy to be right, its much harder to be humble, and a huge dose of humility is definitely what the doctor ordered.

Thanks for listening. I play MMORPGs for the people I meet. And a huge part of why I left was to join some of them elsewhere. If anyone wants PS to succeed, its not about RP or PL or any of it. It's about people. We stop acting like animals to each other when we start seeing the people on the other side of the chatbox.

I didn't RP with Lolitra, but had TONS of fun when she played Ixala. After a while the speech pattern just seemed normal, and I always looked forward to what she had to say!

A great person and a fun player. You are certainly awesome all around!

I tend to like both the sit and chat as well as action/adventure RP. The thing about sit and chat though is that unless your character (and often the person playing it) is interested in the current topic, its hard to follow. I've had times where people that I normally hunt down for some RP have gotten into very personal discussions where my character and myself have been very lost, but IC wouldn't normally leave. I can imagine many wouldn't take the time to sit through it, and all it may take is one convo like that to turn them away. Action/adventure seems to go over better I think because you are involved one way or the other, the consequences of whatever is going on having a direct effect on anyone nearby. The tavern RP seemed to work best as a "wind-down", where chars could discuss what happened and invariably how they were affected. It is much harder to start the RP there, as in real life you don't start your day at the bar, but you may end up there after a day's work to either forget the day or discuss it with friends/co-workers/etc. So there has to be a rise in out of tavern RP before you see the rise of in-tavern RP, because then people will have something to talk about when they get to the bar. As a criminal in Yliakum, the taverns made a great place to interact with other criminals and set up meetings to discuss the next job.

Another issue mentioned is game mechanics and how it affects RP. The issue is, there will probably never be a MMORPG that forgoes extensive game mechanics and dueling in favor of creative a more strictly RP environment with more emphasis on avatar development, at least not in a medieval setting. So like it or not, the game mech is here to stay. And when players work to improve their skills, they are still in the RP environment, which many RPers tend to find distracting. So perhaps a solution to this is a strictly OOC area players can travel/teleport to so that their training and OOC development doesn't conflict with the RP environment. I have seen this done before and while it doesn't eliminate OOC off topic chat entirely, it may solve the "everyone running around Hydlaa Plaza with swords unsheathed" issue.

If you look at other areas of the net, you'll see exactly why the player base has dwindled so much.

Most people here have a MySpace account I would assume. A huge part of that number probably just stops by now once in a blue to check it. So what happened? They put ads all over the place, cluttered the interface, tried to be a Facebook clone with all the apps, and generally became unusable. And they did this over a very short period of time.

Planeshift is very much the same. I'll admit, people wanted new features, myself included. They begged and pleaded for them. As a response, Planeshift tried to take a HUGE leap over a very short period of time. This caused many people to be unable to operate the game, whether it was from low specs on their comps to the game just not loading at all. I think this rush to grow up overnight was a result of mounting tensions within the community, and a rush to satisfy the masses.

As Rigwyn said, the playground needs to be fixed first. Problem one has always been that to even get the game going requires more hacking than any casual gamer should have to go through. Goal one should be to have something that works out of the box, without tweaking settings files and going through system folders. Problem two is that once players are in the game, it lags more than games with tons more concurrent users, much larger environments, and much higher variety of in game items/clothes/player models. And the current third problem as stated before is that many can't even launch the game in the first place.

Though PlaneShift is a role-playing game, right now its future, both of getting older players to return as well as new players to stay, rests solely on the probably overworked shoulders of the coders. Perhaps its the 3D engine. Perhaps its the code for the game settings. Whatever it is, something on the technical end needs to be optimized to allow players to spend less time trying to get it to work and more time focusing on roleplay. This may mean rolling a whole new client altogether and starting from the ground up. But buildings can't stand on weak foundation, so perhaps this is the best time to start rebuilding, taking what has been learned and making it even better. Starting over is not a step back unless you don't learn from mistakes.

Once everything gets rolling, people will play and hopefully heal and rebuild the fractured community. I've certainly had fun times playing when I could get on, and wouldn't mind popping in once in a while to have a little fun (or mischief) again.

And Illysia...I understand it isn't very fun to have such an establishment without customers, but these days, there just aren't enough to go around. Don't give up on it, but don't be afraid to go out on some adventures elsewhere either. If they rebuild it, they will come.

I mostly play a menki and a dwarf, though i have a few other lesser used alts of many races

ahhh yes..I've been uncloaked twice, which led to very interesting situations in both instances. to put it in perspective, how much would Scooby Doo suck if no one ever got unmasked? Once in a while you have to offer the good guys a payoff. However, good guys should know that they shouldn't ALWAYS be able to uncover the bad guy, nor should a good guy or bad guy be UNDEFEATABLE. Even Superman had weaknesses, even if he was almost invincible. Great villians are hard to find, thats why in other forms they keep coming back from the dead. Just keep a balance between the two and some great storytelling will happen.