Are there any official guilds, or unofficial groups of players, that act as police for in-character quarrels? Or that \"patrol\" areas and help out little Timmy, \"Mr. Powice Person, that big mean Tesufang is right down the stairs in the sewers an\' I can\'t cowect rat tails to sell to the hobo in a dragon suit can you make it go to sweep for me?\"
(I used to dread that Tesufang whilst hunting for precious rat tails... Maybe it liked my shampoo?)

If there are groups that uphold a noble ideal of \"keeping the peace\" (despite thieves and warlocks wandering about freely) and I haven\'t noticed your valiant efforts, I\'m sorry ^^; (Pst, could you watch Kada El\'s for drunkards?)

I also wonder how a guild with the intent of acting as a police force would be recieved by GMs. They would be like a militia, without official powers. Would there be too much confusion between who roleplays keepers of the peace and who actually keeps it?

Originally posted by Rage McCloud
Well obviously this is already planned as during CC you see the face,haircolor,eyecolor,etc. by the name and such... but yes it is a good idea...

I was already aware of hair/skin/etc options, but specifically a character\'s body build is what interests me.

Having it affect stats brings up more coding work, and would discourage newer players from having fun making a non-standard appearance. Easiest solution for this if it really would be odd, like an overweight Klyros, would be \"simply\" to disable that phenotype.

A character that looks harmless, say an emaciated Dermorian wearing rags, might be an experienced player with high strength. This could be considered not that the character is actually strong, but is skilled enough to utilize their strength more efficiently- hence, \"experienced\". An agile character that is \'large\' is not actually unusual. One of my friends is, hrm, \"big\", and he is fast. And can kick. He\'s scary even if he\'s only mock fighting. But I digress...

These are simply more examples of how roleplay can be \"spiced up\" and in an easier way; if you constantly have to describe your character\'s appearance when someone new enters the area, it detracts from your ability to continue smoothly and uses up more time.

(I also seem to remember at one time human female models, and hair and outfit colors? Or am I crazy? I hadn\'t played PlaneShift in a year or two.)

We can\'t tell you what you\'ll like or dislike, just like you can\'t tell us to like something you like ^^; And I\'ve played a lot of RPGs too (most pen & paper with dice though...)

However, I can tell you what I personally think, and I think I like PlaneShift

And I hope if you manage to survive the download, update, and first load that you\'ll like it too?

I re-read the naming policy and noticed something I missed the first time...

\"Perhaps you might choose a name that sounds similar to a famous landmark, \"Eiffel\" for example. But even though you might not have realised its similarity to a real-world object, the fact remains that it is an OOC reference. When naming your character, please be considerate and investigate whether the name you have decided on refers to an important or well-known place/culture/object/landmark/etc.\"

The name \"Sakar\" is not \"well-known\" but it refers to some prophet in (I think) a Native American culture. He (or she?) gave (some chief) \'bad advice\' when it came to war. It was also spelled in the textbook something more like \"Sequar\". This was also years ago, I didn\'t just decide to do this on the spot for PlaneShift. (I am not trying to say, \"I\'ve used this name for years you can\'t tell me not to use it!\" I\'m simply showing that this name wasn\'t completely random, but explaining the initial characters it was used for is a waste of time.)

Recently I ran both spellings through AltaVista.
I found out that \"Sakar\" is a corporation selling camera/speaker accessories. And it can be a persons\' last name. Here I thought I was being clever changing some letters in \"Sequar\"... which also turned out to be a persons\' last name.

Well I just invalidated my current PlaneShift character and made myself look a total newb; but where do these fantasy generator names come from? Are they random letters put together that sound cool? Or are they actually more elaborate corruptions of existing names? Aren\'t all names derived from activities or locations at some point in time anyways?

...

Or do I have too much time to think about this, but sadly not enough to actually play PlaneShift at the moment?
(That is not to say I wrote this to take up space. These questions are going to be on my mind for a while, and it might spark an interesting discussion.)

Is it possible to unzip, say \"hydlaa_plaza.zip\" into a directory \"hydlaa_plaza\" and change the references in the configuration file(s)?

I know that after an update I\'d have unzip the fixed files again, if the above concept would work. My computer has this bad habit of scanning every single zip file access, making map loads freeze not only the client but all other processes while the file is scanned. Unfortunately I can\'t find a way to disable that feature alone in my AntiVirus software.

Part of the reason I ask instead of tinker is that you might have a very important reason for using zip files ^^;