I think the best way to answer this question is ask, "What does the game make me do to advance in said magic way?" For example, consider the quests involved in earning various glyphs. Whether or not ways are good, evil or other is always a good philosophical discussion, but whether the specific tasks required to earn a dark way glyph vs a crystal way glyph are equally ambiguous isn't - it's pretty cut and dry. If you want to complete the dark way, you're going to have to do some pretty evil things to do it. Strictly referring to NPC means of acquiring said glyphs. GM events likely open the doors to characters of all types taking up magic ways of their liking without doing deeds too good or two evil for their personalities.

I'm hardly a lore expert by any means, but the gist I got from character creation and the questlines I've pursued is that Laanx, Dakkru and Black Flame are the evil religions, and Talad and Xiosia are the good religions. Crystal and Blue way are the sole providence of the good, black and red are the sole providence of evil, azure and brown are fairly neutral. In summation, one's choice of magic ways is one of the greatest determinants of what sort of character you roleplay, because you can't get certain glyphs without doing certain deeds, and the quests' morality aren't often subtle. I tend to make my characters worship Talad and focus on crystal, blue and to a lesser extent, azure, because to make any other choice means being a psychopath. You might worship Laanx, and Laanx might not be intended to be evil, but so far as I've been able to learn, the only way to get certain dark way glyphs, for example, is to do some pretty unsavory things. Not sure how much of this is just limitations of the unfinished game status, and how much of this is intentional.

When I choose a race, I first weed out any race that doesn't have its own models yet. It's not certain whether players who use them now will get access to the character creator when the real models come out, and who knows what the default look for said race will be. I can think of at least one example I read one night when I was browsing older threads where a person was stuck with unwanted, forced cosmetic changes to his character, and that's something I want to avoid.

Then I go and look at the popularity of the different remaining options. I decide which races I like and choose the least popular. In my case, I really enjoy nonstandard races. Enki and Klyros are oversaturated beyond compare. That left Kran. For a while I was even avoiding Kran because I feared all their character creation facts were doomed to radical overhaul, since so much of it is inconsistent with their unusual existence. I got over that and am playing a Kran currently.

I'm creating a Kran. Not just any Kran, but a Kran Talad priest of sorts. I was reading 3.3 of the player's guide, specifically on Kran, and it seems they can't really progress far in anything - 8th rank in all magics, 8th rank in all things thieving, and even 8th rank in martial arts. Now, I thought "martial arts" might only refer to punching, but I went down to the Enki description, and they get a bonus to martial arts - starting in rank 4 in "any one school". That leads me to believe "martial arts" means all things fighting. So, if I'm not off base, Kran are intended to be dedicated crafters, since pretty much everything that might ever hurt somebody (barring food poisoning if the Kran is a chef), is going to be capped off at rank 8. Magic, stealth and combat, anyway.

This leads me to my question. This game is full of roleplayers who seem to enjoy going beyond what's there right now and pretending what's yet to be already is. Do most of you stop raising your skills when the race guide says your race can't go further? Because, if so, Krans can be pretty much as powerful as they'll ever be right out of creation. Why, I accidently got Azure up to rank 11 and I'll be going back to trim that down.

I suppose I aught to suggest allowing the Kran, when limitations are implemented, to progress past rank 8 in something. If martial, magic and stealth abilities all cap at 8, well, that relegates one of the game's most original races to town dwelling virtual NPC status, with other players keeping Kras naked, barefoot and in the kitchen, the way they like them. Maybe I read too much into the Kran description? I do have a habit of stretching for conclusions. Just thinking out loud. I like this game quite a bit. The hardest part about coming up with a character isn't that they're all bad, it's that they're all good. I haven't seen a game with so many unorthodox races. Kran, Enki, Klyros, the two devil races, seamen, mystic smurfs - there's something for everyone.

Swords were pretty useless against plate armor. Plate armor brought about a switch to blunt weapons, because pretty much all piercing and slashing weapons were rendered close enough to useless not to be worth it. Daggers still had a use, though. While no knight would charge into battle with knife extended, in the event combat turned to grappling, or in the event a plated warrior was taken off his feet, it was the dagger that was best suited to administering a death blow - but then, only once the opponent was fully subdued and pinned. If daggers need to be a waste of time leveling, so should swords and bows. Really, the only weapons that should be remarkably effective should be hammers, maces and the like. That's the realism if realism is the goal - not sure it should be.

If realism is the goal, and nigh invulnerable plate armor users (and they were neigh invulnerable until the advent of firearms), plate armor users should risk collapse from overheating if they don't take breaks from wearing the armor, and particularly if they fight in it for extended periods. The idea that plate armor rendered one immobile is largely a fallacy. Not a total fallacy - tournament jousting armor was indeed so specialized and heavy in some cases, that one did need help to mount a horse for example, but show arms and practical arms were two different things - same with sword weight. I have a replica zweihander from renaissance Landeskenechts and it weighs a good 15 pounds. Parade swords could sometimes get so unweildy, but combat swords never did.

So anyway, Real plate armor should be largely invulnerable to bladed weapons, reasonably vulnerable to blunt weapons, and the user should face penalties to endurance - passing out or worse, if he fights extended periods in any sort of warm weather. One idea about plate armor that isn't a fallacy is that the stuff was a microwave. Thick padding, heat conductive metal - it was a serious problem.

EDIT: In summary, if realism is the key, the tradeoff for practical invulnerability in combat to swords, daggers and the like should be my seeing random heavy armor wearers passed out here and there if they wear their armor everywhere they go, and passing out from protracted combat. To further the realism, the dagger users aught be able to take the opportunity to administer a near 100% chance death blow into a gap in the armor, such as the visor. THAT was the dagger's raison d'etre, and if its weaknesses are being fully recognized, so too should its strengths. Fair is fair.

Good points on the "Hi" bits, but here's something to think about. Medieval people didn't typically give over the top greetings either. They were you and I, and they were just casual people trying to fit in. I imagine they, in their olde (insert language here) said the translation of "hello" in a slang that nobles probably wouldn't use. My next question isn't sarcasm or anything - just a real question: Can you think of the right way to say hi as an average Joe in the world? Because what seems horribly fake to you when you read "Hi" seems much more normal to me than, "Hail and greetings to you, stranger. I am Zuccabar Haliburton, a fine smith if ever you met one. And who might you be?" You see - nobody talks like that. Doesn't anyone just shake hands, say hi, and have a beer? I know a beer sounds damn good right now.

Hand drawn maps are great - no question about that. I suppose my only argument for automating it is that that's how all the other things you can do in the game work, for the most part. For example, my character can call an ice storm down on people and freeze them to death. I'm glad I don't have to have the ability to do so personally for my character to be able to do so, because, just between us, I can't really cast spells in real life. I can't sword fight either. I can't make potions. I also can't draw. That's more what I was thinking of - the making it something trainable so that in character abilities and player abilities maintain that level of separation. It's like the insanely longwinded Klyros fellow explains in his how to roleplay monologue - separating what you know from what your character knows - I imagine it should go both ways. The specifics of how the finished products are produced is anyone's call, however. I borrowed the autofill concept from the Elder Scrolls series, though I'm sure many games use it. That said, I wouldn't want to ruin anyone's moneymaking niche. It's not that big a deal. There are enough landmarks for me to find my way around. Those rock formations are genius on that front.

There's a fair, at least, demand for in game maps, but one of my favorite aspects of Planeshift so far is how merciless it is in making you figure things out yourself. I was thinking a good compromise might be that players could level a cartography skill, in which areas they walk through are drawn onto a map, coloring in blankness along the specific path the character walks, and the higher one's cartography skill, the more accurate and/or detailed the map becomes. A map would be a physical item in one's inventory and only one map could be made at a time, to prevent a player walking around with a dozen blank sheets filling them all at once. Perhaps game mechanics could draw the map, but the player would have to do the labeling.