Same here. First after installation everything went fine, I could start the game and got some GUI which started the updater. After updating I there was the 'Play' button, but it crashed planeshift. Now running it from the menu-shortcut shows a window for a short time, and from terminal I get:
WARNING: could not load plugin 'crystalspace.syntax.loader.service.text'
ERROR: Couldn't load plugin with class 'crystalspace.syntax.loader.service.text'!
WARNING: failed to initialize plugin 'crystalspace.graphics3d.shadercompiler.xmlshader'
WARNING: failed to initialize plugin 'crystalspace.graphics3d.shadercompiler.weaver'
WARNING: could not load plugin 'crystalspace.syntax.loader.service.text'
ERROR: Couldn't load plugin with class 'crystalspace.syntax.loader.service.text'!
WARNING: failed to initialize plugin 'crystalspace.graphics3d.shadercompiler.xmlshader'
WARNING: could not load plugin 'crystalspace.level.loader'
Checking for updates to the updater: Using mirror http://216.6.227.163/xordan/
WARNING: could not load plugin 'crystalspace.level.loader'
WARNING: Can not load default shader vars, no iSyntaxService available
Opening GLX2D
Creating Context
Video driver GL/X version (direct renderer)
Visual ID: 0x0000000000000027, 24bit TrueColor
R8:G8:B8:A8,
level 0, double buffered
WARNING: could not load plugin 'crystalspace.syntax.loader.service.text'
ERROR: Couldn't load plugin with class 'crystalspace.syntax.loader.service.text'!
NOTIFY: Applied: Broken ATI point sprites (ATI)
...
and many more such lines. Possibly my graphics driver causes the problem, because I read that Ubuntu 9.10 which I'm running has known issues with that. However, because at first it did launch, it could also be a bug after updating. At least I can run in under windows.

Hi,

Could it be that the md5 sum that is listed on the Download page (PlaneShift-v0.5.3-x64.bin: 75f1c7ebe74ede626b699a222d321518) is of an older version? I downloaded it twice from different mirrors, but get the same, wrong md5sum (efd8452f27489013ef6c8fa7cd3d8d2f).

Thank you,