I play games for the entertainement value. The entertainment value of PS is already pretty low to me, due to countless encounters with so called "roleplayers", who constantly drop out of character to lecture me in [bracketspeak] on what they consider to be in character (the idiocy here is overwhelming).
Religions in real life are a scam and I strongly oppose to them. Make it mandatory for me to follow one in PlaneShift and behave in what I would normally call idiotic ways, then the entertainment value drops even further. I don't really want to have to say "Hail Xiosa" in public once a login day, just to avoid permadeath.

First, that's unrelated.  If you have a complaint on such an issue, bring it up somewhere else, please.  Second, while I agree with you that having to say 'hail <insert religion>!' Or die permanently would be silly, I feel previous posts in this thread have already covered this with viable and serious alternatives.  Namely, Prolix, Dajoji, and Khoridor, on the fact that not only is it an ambiguous text, there's solutions that could be implemented in the same manner, or over the top of "you don't haz religion, you die!!!111!"

As far as my character is concerned, gods do exist. Big deal, so do rocks. I don't worship rocks either and I couldn't care less about what is written in religious tracts. These were obviously not written by the gods themselves, but by worshippers who have an agenda of pushing their religion and hence the truth value of the texts is questionable at best. Even if the books were directly dictated by the deity in question, this would still not matter to me, as gods can lie too (see BF, which at least honestly admits being full of deceit). The best any god can expect from my character is a lip service and even that will only be given if it is rewarding.

See post from Donari.  Your character is a weak atheist.  Congrats.

Furthermore, I'd like to mention, that the PS gods are anything but almighty and infallible. They may be powerful beyond mortal means, but they are still incompetent in countless ways:

(''>.>)  The point I'm trying to make here is that they are powerful, and they are flawed.  That doesn't mean they are undeserving of worship.  Look at the greek gods, they did all sorts of crap far worse than any cited here, and they were worshiped very heavily. 

* Black Flame ... wears bunny slippers and probably got totally lost in planning and scheming for no purpose by now.

The Black Flame is far more real, and far closer than you'd think.   

Nobody is perfect, the PS gods double so. Neither of them is a true creator god and none truly stands above anything (especially not it's fellow deities), so it does not make much sense, why any should have true dominion over life and death (Talad almost killed Laanx, remember?). Ever thought about the possibility, that Dakkrus curse in reality is just a little souvenir, people get who have the will of escaping the realm she claimed as hers? Maybe, the gods don't bail you out of DR. Them doing so is just some PR lie, told by their priests (after all, worshippers make donations, donations pay the rent, the more worshippers a priest can gather, the more wealth/influence he gets). Ever seen a god actively helping you to get out of the DR? Me neither and considering the amount of tourist traffic in there, I doubt that any god would even want to get personally involved in the check out process. So, even if the exit gate was somehow powered all gods mysteriously working together for no obvious reason at all, there would still be enough room for any non worshipper and atheists to slip by.

Only problem--Dakkru is the goddess of death.  That means she gets dominion over life, and death.  The rest of that is simply speculation on things still in development.  I can't argue that without knowing if it's true or false, but it's an interesting take.

In summary, the people of Yliakum have obvious gods present.  If your character chooses to ignore them, or take them lightly, then he/she/kra ought to be prepared to deal with some sort of consequence.  That consequence could be anything, that text is fairly ambiguous and could be changed during a future update. 

I would like to state that such a process of enforcement on religion would need to be implemented carefully, and probably won't happen anytime soon(TM).  See here if you would like to know what the devs are currently working on...  Doesn't seem like this issue is very pressing, and it shall remain open to interpretation by players until something definitive is put into place.  Alternatively, you could put more ideas on the table as to how the process works, and see what kind of feedback you get.  You don't need to shoot an idea down before it's even close to thought through.

First off, this has one purpose.  To help people who have questions find an answer from the development team.  Thanks to XilliX for being patient and answering these questions.  And thanks to All whom participated in this IRC Q&A.

NOTE:  These are taken as close to word-for-word as can be without posting logs.  This has been formatted for easy reading.  I cleaned up some grammar, and organized them to make sure everything flowed coherently. 

Complaints should be directed to me in a PM.  Cluttering the thread with them is pointless.

Format:
question
answer

1.  When presented with a decision whether or not to implement something, what is the process?
we have weekly meetings, where ideas are spammed out among the devs, and we narrow toward consensus.  When we agree we marshall our resources toward that goal.


2.  What are the current GM event ideas?  Does the team accept new ideas?
I spoke with dajoji and some other gms just today about some event ideas. I can hint that we are looking into the serpent and eagle gobbles, bribery of public officials, and some more "dark" events. The gm team is always open to ideas, though it is best if you pm them, I will suggest dajoji.


3.  Why do different parts of the team give different answers to the same question?
We are different people and although we try to present a unified front, sometimes people catch us before we have formulated a unified idea.


4.  what is the next goal of development? 
Our biggest goal atm is getting specular, bump, glow, and parallax working.  Also, getting shaders in game.


5.  What suggestions would you have to RPers whom complain about RP being dead?
I take responsibility for only one aspect of rp seeming to fall short of player's expectation: I hired a bunch of the best rpers and helped empower the gm team to do the same. Inasmuch as I had anything to do with rp falling off it is only that I wanted to hire rpers to build and enforce the game's rules.  In terms of advice for people who say rp is dead I say this: It really is up to each of you to keep it alive.


6.  Is there ever going to be more with the Black Flame? Like additions to the temple?
Of course.


7.  Can we expect enhancement of the crafting rules in the near future?
Not in the NEAR future, unless we get an influx of people interested in crafting to apply.


8.  Player guards?
No.  I have some personal goals for the possibility of player governance but those are not approved and not fully formed atm. I might be more open to the idea once the players made city is done. Core problem: Players don't seem to like the idea at all (see forums).


9.  What is generally frowned upon in settings?
Settings tends to frown on atheists in game, excessive complaints, anyone giving the gm team a hard time, and posts that undermine planeshift's PR made to external forums.


10.  Is it bad RP to include things not defined in settings, such as a spell that you think would fit with the way?
It is best to include only spells defined in game at this time as the game is alpha; we will however accept your suggestions for spells.  These should be pmed to Kayden or Xordan on the forums.


11.  What would you personally, or the team as a whole, like to see in guilds?
I would like organizations with some purpose that is actually rooted in bring aspects of the game to life. Example: The guilds on the faiths I supported wholly. Example: Trade guilds. Example: Merchant guilds that stay stable and actually succeed to cover all timezones.


12.  What are the current thoughts on child characters?
Although I have seen some interesting uses of child characters and guilds and appreciate the thought that went into the guilds and roleplays concerned, I do not think planeshift will be spending effort to create child characters any time soon. There are too many pitfalls surrounding the inclusion of children within a game on an mmo platform and these are to be avoided.


13.  Will a logic for how to the sentient creature species(derghirs or gobbles) act be implemented?
Yes.  Making the settings for 12 unique cultures isn't easy and I will always need more people than I have.


14.  Where can books detailing settings information be found?
Hydlaa Jayose, Black Flame Temple, Death Realm.  Remember this though, there are consequences for going places that require bad things to enter them.
(Follow up)
If a player happens to have a question that is not answered by these books, to whom should they direct their questions?
We have several threads dedicated to asking this kind of question--players should use those and be patient.

If you have this type of question, look in the following locations:
Newbie Help Board
Complaint Department
Wishlist
Or, perhaps just use the search function.


15.  When do you think clothes will be implemented?
Clothes are harder than one might think, we hope to spend more effort on those once we get up to date 3d methodologies working in PS


16.  Will we ever be able to customize Armor?
Yes to a degree.


17.  Why can't furniture work correctly out side of guild houses?
have you ever seen the ladder to heaven episode of southpark?


18.  Any Questions Concerning Pets
We are not currently heavily focused on pets due to more urgent needs.


19.  Is quest-based training planned?
Yes, the problem is it is very costly in terms of time spent for settings.


20.  Concerning Reworking the Training System
It is high priority but we do have other things that are more important to work on at the moment.


21.  When will ranged combat be implemented?
The reason I can't answer is ranged combat will require a lot of animations, and being as we don't even have all the races completed it is hard to say when we will have ranged combat.  I can say this though: We are eager to put ranged combat in game.


22.  Will there ever be play on the other levels?
Yes.


23.  Can we expect to see more domesticated animals?
Yes.


Here's hoping this puts some of the tougher-to-get-a-straight-answer questions to rest.

Below are links to helpful sections, stickies, or threads that answer other common questions.

Game Rules and Policies
Forum Ban Policy
The PS Tech Guide!
Known Fixes to Common Issues
How to Write Bug Reports
Quest Fix Updates
PHP Script to Check Laanx Status
How to Post Images
Sending PM difficulties?
Planeshift Acronyms and Slang
Gameplay FAQ
Tips for Players Regarding Events
Roleplay Mission
Guild Directory
Rules for Guild Posts

Hope this helps to clear a lot of things up! 

personally i think magic works just fine, it takes absolutely no skill to click cast over and over in a fight, so if magic were fairly strong at low levels then there would be no place for weapons in fights of any sort.  Magic is definitely far more powerful than close combat weapons, but you have to spend a fortune to get there, otherwise everyone would use magic and swords would be useless.

Which is why it's being rebalanced now!   

The devs are working on it...  Be patient for these things.

Trolls?

-made by Kieve

No need to make a guild to get rid of them. That is what the guards are for. What you are doing here would be making an illegal 'enforcement' guild.

LOL, but I'm fairly certain he didn't mean actual trolls...  Just IC pranking if some character wants to get back at another.

*Correct me if I'm wrong here.

Very well done UtM. 

I thought their article was kinda pathetic...  I mean, the reasons above, but also the fact that he posted a whole page of lame trolling and a guy acting like an idiot....  >.>

Perhaps they would've just done best to not review PlaneShift.

(Hint for SA:  TROLL BETTER.)

5) Just try to arrest me.    (hint: I wouldn't be surprised if the incarceration spell just plum didn't work on Farren or Kaerli, Farren's quite resistant to magic and Kaerli has a limited form of that through her necklace)  (they could, but it'd take them a good deal of time and effort to do so + they'd have to do it "by hand" for the reason mentioned above)

They totally should.  And then Kaerli can replace the entire guard.  We won't need anyone else.

(Just try to arrest me...  I HAVE A TANK!!  )

(*Sees Kaerli is guard captain* "Oh.  I'm gonna need more than a tank.")

I picked Problem solving, Epicness, and Episodes for the event types I would like... 

Mostly because I think it would be very entertaining to see a small group of people that follow an episodal event use their brains in order to change something about Yliakum's history, or maybe even add something new, and that many players would enjoy being able to get their names in the history books for participating in such an event.  Also, such a reward of fame would make players feel as if they had an in character reason for participating in the event IMHO.

I mean, if your character could have a chance to be famous, and they would take it (I, Roleplayer...), wouldn't that be a worthwhile reason for participating in the event?

I think that if another poll choice had been available, I would've chosen Magic knowledge mostly because that would be an interesting break from the mundane that some people talk about.  (You know, if a NPC starts talking--even over a tiny thing--several people flock to them.  With a more magical base, the event would probably be a less run-of-the-mill sounding happening, thus justifying that flock, crowd, group, whatever.)

*Also note that I greatly appreciate the fact that the GMs take the time to ask us players what we want.  I feel like that's something that deserves praise, so thank you.