I doubt the java L2 server source would help in any fashion because user interface, movement, screen ratio, and pretty much everything else is client side, not server side.  The server mainly contains databases and is a relay (and validator) for each clients data.

As far as I can tell there are no real large issues with the PS server, its mainly the client features/bugs that are my concern.

Its not a bug if its the way it was intended to be.  I.E. is it a bug of windows that you have to restart for practically everything?  No, its just in its design, so submitting a bug report to microsoft complaining that you have to restart when installing video drivers, or a new program, etc... would be fruitless because they dont consider that a bug.

As far as I know, the devs dont consider the walking to be bugged, is this what they want it to be?  Posting a bug report for something thats not so much of a bug, as a badly implemented feature, is not what bug systems are for.

For the ratio issue, yeah, that would be a bug report, but that was just a side note in the original post, wasnt the main topic of discussion, I can run the game in a 4:3 ratio window without ratio issues so for now its just a minor annoyance, it was just the reasoning behind why its not being supported yet that I was arguing with.

Posting a patch would be a useless waste of time if the coders dont consider the thing broke.  If I posted a patch to 'fix' something they think works fine already, or a patch that added or changed something that they dont want messed with, such as movement and screen ratio, then that would be a huge waste of my time.  And as you said, you dont know much about coding, its not as simple as 'patching whats broken', I would have to spend hours trying to set up a proper development enviroment (all the proper versions of the proper libs and utilites that they compile with, the same compiler they use, etc...), attempt to get PS client and server compiled (which as their own news posts say "The sources package was giving some issues"), and then try and figureout their coding style, their rules, their formats, and then attempt to fix something that they havent really agreed is broken. I could always, of course, write up a untested patch, but there are always tiny things that you didnt account for that need tweeking and such.  If I didnt have so many other projects at the moment (one of which, oddly enough, is a mmorpg), I would be glad to help, assuming of course, that I agreed with the licence (havent read it really).

As far as PS not being like other MMORPGs, from the looks of it, besides movement, its almost identical to EQ2 (a comment which my brother-in-law made the other day), which isnt bad by any means.

As far as your post about widescreens, its all area dependent, just like HD TV's, statistics say %23 of homes in the USA have HD TV's, and they are a hot seller, yet I have never seen a house with one in it, they just dont sell arround here, where as with widescreens, you goto Best Buy, Circuit City, or Wal-Mart and thats almost all they offer anymore in this area.  If you goto pretty much any online PC store (I use tigerdirect.com) and look at all of their laptops, ATLEAST 75% have non 4:3, they are NOT all widescreen, but they most are not 4:3, thats the point, it doesnt have to be a widescreen to have a non 4:3 ratio. 

And the game is still listed as prealpha on sourceforge, I use the term beta (somewhat inaccurately) to apply to all pre release state projects.

"Sure you can walk and turn in general directions, but (for example), in the area you are in when you die, after you go up the bridge, when you need to take a 90 degree turn to the left and up the cliff side (and then SLOWLY walk arround the path leading up), you have to pretty much come to a dead stop to turn in the right direction or risk falling off of the ledge."

I'd like to see you run as fast as you can in RL and make a 90 degree turn without having to slow down.     I see the movement the way it is now quite nice, save for the slow turning with the mouse, but again, thats already been discussed.

First, we play games to ESCAPE real life.  I would like to see you cast magic, or do many of the other things that you can do in MMORPGs including PS in real life, but you know its not gonna happen.

My main issue with your posts is the vagueness of it.  You're just saying stuff is bad and you can't use it, but without any real suggestions on how to fix the things you're complaining about.  Yes, we don't have the mouse stuff, but unless you feel like writing it we just don't for now.

I keep getting that "You complain but dont offer solutions" argument here, which must mean you dont actually read my post all the way through because I have made MANY suggestions for improvement.

Not many people have widescreens? Are you joking?  I havent physically seen a laptop in years that didnt have a non 4:3 ratio (they are not always 'wide' but they are rarely 4:3), and atleast 30% of the people I know with desktop PCs have widescreens, and I know alot of people.  Hell, widescreens are so popular now that even my place of work (most definitly not a computer orientated company), just upgraded ALL of their PCs with widescreens.

Yes, I understand all to well that there are alot of things to do, and not everything is a priority, and many coders are contributors that do it during their spare time, I work on projects the same way.  You missunderstand my post, I dont demand that they be fixed or changed right now, I didnt say anything of the sort, I simply gave my view on the subject, hoping that the developers would take this into account and work on it when they can get to it.  If everyone just ignored the problem (any problem), instead of voicing their opinion, you would end up with a pile of junk rather than a useable engine.  Isnt that what community projects are about? 

In the few months I have played my most recent MMORPG (EQ2) I have seen many drastic game changes (all of them, in my opinion, a really good step in the right direction).  How would any of these changes have come about if the players hadnt spoken up?  Well I am speaking up, the movement system is lacking and could use a good workover.

With the controls, you're really the first person to think this is as bad as you say it is.

Might this be simply because of the harsh response you seem to give (case in point) if someone disagrees with the way something works?  Hmm?  Just a little?  Might the people who dislike it just give up on it and not even bother to sign up and post on the forum? (I know a few of these personally, they like the engine, dont like the movement, but feel its pointless to sign up to a forum and complain, ) Knowing its usually a pointless waste of bandwidth because more often then not, devotees and the developers tend to act in the same manner that some of you in this post have?  Now this forum hasnt been nearly as bad with their response as I have seen in other communities, but it certainly isnt welcoming input and ideas.

BTW I just showed the game to my brother-in-law about two hours ago, I didnt tell him anything bad about it, didnt mention movement AT ALL, I told him only good about the engine, showed him all the interesting details in character creation, and the nice visuals the game offers, and went through lists of skills and such that will be available in the game, and told him that he should check it out, and the first thing he noticed watching me play was how it controled.  He didnt like it at all.  I told him, however, that as a beta, a work in progress, that the developers would fix things like that when they get the chance.  I hope I am not wrong.

I completely agree with you about RE, its a game I hate, and the only reason being the movement.  And not to be insultive but I dont honestly see a difference between the RE and PS movement (default settings), they are pretty close, and it would be very simple to add the camera based movement as I suggested (as an optional movement method), with that, and a better camera movement (and the ability to have a mouse button assigned to move the camera AND interact with objects, simple, if the mouse is not over an object when clicked, it acts as a camera control, if it is over an object, it does the standard object interaction, cant be but a few lines of code to achive), I would have no real complaints.

As for WASD, not only do I not use my keyboard for gaming (its for typing) but the positioning of WASD on a natural style keyboard does not make for good movement of any sort. they are not aligned like standard arrow keys, they are at an angle and staggered for best ergonomics, so the best (and easiest by far) method of movement comes from using the mouse, yet its fatally flawed.

As for detecting the ratio, its really pretty simple, you can detect the screen resolution and simply do the math to see what ratio the width is compared to the height.  I understand it would be difficult to draw copies of all the 2d artwork (loading screens etc...) for all possible ratios, but a centered, (possibly bordered), 2d image is much better than seeing fat faces and such.

Let me start off by saying that I have played (and still play) many online RPGs from muds to full blown MMORPGs, and while Planeshift (so far) looks really good (and I applaud the efforts of the developers  ), the one thing it seriously lacks is decent movement.

The game feels more like a Resident Evil style game with its slow and tedious movement.  Most 3d rpgs use a very similar (to each other) style of movement, and there is a good reason for this, because it works.  Because it takes the tedium out of controling your character, allowing you to focus on the actual game content.  Just load up EQ1/2 or FFXI, or many others to get an example of a good movement system, where you can jump in and just play, not take hours just trying to figureout how to move your character without falling off ledges or running into walls.

After trying the movement for awhile, I had a bright idea! Maybe there are mouse movement controls like these other RPGs! Maybe that will take the pain out of movement, alas what I found out is that mouse movement is just as bad as the keyboard movement.  "Pathfinding"mouse movement on a game that has deadly cliffs and bridges to navigate often, is a BAD IDEA , and thats if it works right, since it doesnt (mainly camera issues), its even worse!  And to top it off, if you have a normal mouse (2-3 button), you cant have MOUSE movement on a mouse button, otherwise the other interaction buttons go arwy!

I am not without suggestions however.  Again looking at other mmorpgs, mouse movement should be very similar to keyboard movent you in the direction the camera is facing (hold the button, sprite runs in that direction)  Camera movement should be done via another mouse button (yes, you can have both camera movement AND context menus on the same button if done properly).

An auto run feature which, again, runs in the direction of the camera (you then use the keys or the mouse to change the camera direction, thus changing your movement direction)

And finally have the option to have the movement keys relative to the camera.

(And of course, fix that mouse look!)

Just a disclaimer, this isnt a rant so much as a "I really want to play this game, but the horrible movement prevents me from enjoying it" post...take from it what you will.