Regarding your 7th point...
Why the name Dryken plane... i think i got some idea why thou its just a guess. I Read it somewhere, don't know where. Maybe in the character creation screen when the lore of coming to Yliakum from Home world there was a description about passing through an illusion. This illusion is the Dryken plane.
I asked in google "dryken plane meaning" and the response i got is "Did you mean: draken plane meaning" and AI Overview "The term "dryken plane" is likely a misspelling of "drunken plane", referring to a human interest story from 2015 about an engineering student who designed an aircraft while drunk". So the feeling of intoxication, drunken hallucination and flying through an illusion may best describe Dryken Plane.
This also answers the question of why the name PlaneShift? it is cuz the plane of the homeland where one was walking is now changed to plane of Yliakum passing though the illusionary plane of Dryken Plane. So this Shift of Plane is PlaneShift.
All these are just guesses, don't take it all as true.


Regarding your 6th point...
My idea to this problem of first time player getting negative view of the game is, the new player will get a choice in the start that weather they want the introduction to be in one of these mode -- 'Easy', 'Medium' or 'Difficult'. In Difficult mode, it will be the same as it is now. In Medium mode, it will bypass the drykane plane and make the character spawn in the labyrinth caves. And in the Easy mode, it will bypass the dryken plane, labyrinth caves and spawn directly infront of the metallurgy or the food lady npc (i forgot which is the 1st npc) in the quest learning in the welcome area.

Hello friends, here is a new release for you to enjoy!


This release cannot be updated through the PSLauncher, so you have to download it from our Download page.

Here is the list of changes for 0.7.52:

Name generation in character creation is now based on race. Each race as a different generator
You can now randomize name and last name separately

Made sprint a toggle. So just press it once to keep sprinting, press it again to stop sprinting. This works in conjuction with R for auto-run.

Added new helms textures, reassigned meshes/textures to the existing helms
Added icons for all helms
Fixed encumbrance, you will be slow down or unable to move if you carry too much weight!
Added encumbrance also while on mount, the mount will slow down as you would do (considering it also has your weight to carry)
Added new Transports! You can now own a transport and use it to carry stuff around.
Added 3 carts and one wagon (at the moment you can only acquire the first one). You can pull the transport manually and use it as a container.
Added possibility to acquire transports through quests.
You cannot use a transport someone else is using.
Added new icon to Use a Transport
Added new NPC role to manage transport storage, which lists all the transports you own.
Transports cannot be picked up or unguarded
Added takeout/store/retrieve function to garage man.
Fixed transports to also work when on a mount. You need to mount the horse first, then attach to the cart

Added a new warehouse building in Hydlaa East, its the new workplace of Jorni
Added the carpenter shop for Hamel near Hydlaa plaza

Increased size of houses in Listarindel by 10%
Added furniture to many houses in Listarindel, also added new council in the main building.

Improvements to random generated events:
- properly respawn NPCs after they get destroyed by the previous event
- properly handle multiple locations
- use different brains for different NPC, but copy from the common master brain
Random events can now send messages and sounds to the client

Added 2 new derghir texture variations
Fixed morph to change texture properly
Fixed armored Riverling texture
Do not set exhausted when falling down
Do not allow sitting when falling down
Fixed fall damage when on mount
Improve network performance by sending max stats only when needed
Fixed the max physical/mental stamina to be correct.
Fixed animation when exiting fishing minigame
Fixed problem with baits re-appearing after fishingv Separated the baits into new fishing bait category
If a tool is nearly broken, we do not allow usage ( less than 0.25 corresponds to the red color on the icon)
Fixed positions of all special loot chests (like Arcane Chest)
You can now consume items also from the right or left hand slots
Fixed guardian_id not being properly saved. Was reset on server restart.
Added message when pet eats something.
Added sounds when lockpicking for start, success and failure
Update Hydlaa adding the new cart storage building
Extended the dungeon generation to allow multiple module sets
Added the new modular caves set to be used with dungeon generation
Fixed dungeon random generation seed
Added new chair and table
Fixed NPC Brain to properly clear the brain memory after dying/respawning, also added the clear of saved known locations
Dryken Plane improvements. Changed the camera when speaking to the dryken entity. Improved second island rock.
Added new cave entrances as droppable items.
Fixed the mechanisms in the lava cave.
Added some new furniture, upgraded some existing furniture and tools textures
Fixed lavacave mechanisms
Added instrument stands
Fixed quilldrake name to allow /morph
New GM command /addnpcneed to increase a specific need in the NPC brain for debug purposes

All the bugs are tracked on our Flyspray, where you can register and add your findings.
If you want to support us, become a Patreon. Find other players in our Discord to get access.

Uadjet: Dev Q&A starting momentarily at the Courthouse of East Hydlaa! Come and hear about the development of the game and ask any questions you might have. If you need a teleport to the meeting, just ask in Global or send Uadjet a /tell.
Damola: I wanted to give some feedback for harvesting. I really went on a tour today from Gugontrid to Listarindel to Amdeneir and then I went with Ptero to Ojaveda and from there towards Raurim.
Uadjet: What did you find?
Damola: My result was 10 gobo root, 10 night mushroom at the large mine near Amdeneir and 12 Glaboria near Eagle Gobble village.
Damola: With Glaboria I could harvest more cause I saw two places in vicinity. I think for the gobo root I would have found the other place as well if I took more time to look.
Damola: But all in all I wondered? that is not quite much.
Damola: For such a way.
Damola: I also looked a bit aside from path ways from time to time, but nothing.
Damola: However I stayed quite close to official path ways.
Damola: I quite like the new harvesting approach. However I tend to think it would be good to have more places where harvestable plants grow.
Anysu: Awe if I was on earlier I could have seen where those areas were to harvest. I have not found many
Damola: Yliakum is very vast? and Damola had quite the travel today, but still only found places for these three items.
Damola: Anysu we can go together one time.
Anysu: That be neat
Damola: Don't know whether others tried and what your experiences were.
Anysu: There are some plants around Camp Banished
Damola: Thanks for letting me know.
Uadjet: I seem to recall a lot of the harvesting resources being well away from roads in Legacy. If that's the case now, with this larger map, we'll need players to map locations, but that'll be hard without a means of sharing map locations with others.
Damola: Hmmm, maybe Damola's path way today went into areas that are not yet well developed map wise.
Anysu: That makes it hard away from road.. due to vastness
Damola: I remember Resildren saying there are a lot of harvesting places.
Damola: Maybe next times I try more the traditional PS Legacy path ways that may be more developed regarding their maps.
Mohonin: i tried feverfew near the pool of stealth, i found it wud let me do succesfull harvesting only 5 times then it depletes, but in that area there are 5-6 spots it spawns
Damola: Okay, Mohonin. Thats quite good. 5-6 spots.
Damola: I always found I could harvest 10 plants.
Damola: Then gone.
Uadjet: And as one despawns, another should pop up somewhere nearby.
Damola: With Glaboria I could pick a few more.
Damola: Maybe there could be some more variation regarding? 5 times and then gone.
Damola: In some places there might be more plants than in others.
Damola: So maybe have a variation from 5 to 10 times harvesting in one place, randomly chosen.
Damola: Or defined.
Damola: So maybe in a place one can harvest about 7-8 times and in another just 5 times.
Damola: I hope Resildren will read this, but I think I will point him to the protocol for the meeting.
Uadjet: I think that was mentioned before while Resi was here, and he did a ton of work on the current plant system.
Damola: Really I appreciate the new system, but I feel it could make use of some balancing in favor to be able to harvest a bit more without running for tons of times.
Anysu: Res was working on a location of plants.
Damola: It does not need to be limitless harvesting as in legacy, actually I like the better realism of the new system.
Anysu: Maybe a harvesting event would be helpful?
Damola: Yeah that as well. Hint, hint at Uadjet.
Damola: Well that is my feedback from actually trying to do a real harvesting tour. I hope it is useful.
Damola: Actually I have another Q, but first want to give someone else opportunity to ask a Q.
Gova: Hmmm. Maybe there's a stream I could find. I found the moved mines by watching old streams and seeing what the coordinates were. There may be something similar with harvesting locations.
Damola: Yeah, Gova. But actually players should not have to watch a 4 hour + stream to find plant locations.
Damola: Of course there could be some variety in how difficult to find plant spots. Some might be more rare or spawn at difficult to reach locations.
Gova: Nah, you just skip through the vids and watch for something that looks like a spreadsheet or editor panel with numbers on it.
Damola: Damola also follow the Irifon River for quite a while, leaving official path ways, but nothing there.
Damola: Anyway, if no one else has another Q? I would have another one.
Uadjet: Go ahead.
Damola: It is about Amdeneir mine. The large one with the roof top. I tried a lot of places but could not mine any ore anyway? Are mining locations implemented there already?
Damola: I went all the way down and tried to mine there. But also on the way down at several locations.
Uadjet: They are not currently active.
Damola: But I also saw now clear ore indications.
Damola: Ah, I see.
Damola: That clears that one up.
Uadjet: I have suggested that if the new city management system requires stone (as opposed to metal) that these places could be used for granite or marble.
Uadjet: That would give them a use, and bring in Masonry for at least simple items.
Damola: Good idea.
Damola: On the other hand you said Amdeneir is mostly about wood? but as I see it in the city, it has a lot of stone as well.
Damola: So would be fitting.
Thosor: The whisper function needs to be fixed, it really messes up trying to contact new players.
Uadjet: It's mostly MADE of wood, but the abundance of mines is part of the city's wealth.
Thosor: And no feedback of your own typing.
Damola: Hmmm? however as I looked there was also quite some stone? Like on the path ways between houses and in lower floor of houses.
Uadjet: I agree, but I don't know how much is involved in fixing it. It may require a new release.
Damola: I agree about whisper.
Anysu: That whisper is annoying..
Uadjet: Yes, that's true. The houses is mostly wood, but it is built on a stone foundation. And those walls sure aren't made of balsa wood.
Damola: I already asked in global. Drifters nowadays only eat fish? It would be fitting. Just wanted to ask.
Damola: Cause mine needed food but did not seem to take any food.
Thosor: Mine didn't want sand cookies, but the rivnak loves them
Damola: Rivnak last I tried eat almost anything.
Damola: Carrots, appled, baked apples, honey glazed apples, cakes, cookies, nut bread.
Damola: I believe even complete meals.
Anysu: cake, cookie and nut bread seems odd for a Rivnak
Thosor: How about ale?
Anysu: ohh never tried that.
Damola: But last I feed Rivnak and Drifter they ate almost anything. My question was whether that has been adapted.
Damola: I may just have misplaced the food, but I tried several places close to the mouth of the drifter.
Anysu: good question
Gova: We can test it.
Thosor: I think the ground terrain affects food placement.
Damola: I am all for adapting it. Aside from fish drifters may also eat algae. But an apple? Unlikely.
Damola: Thosor, that is a good hint. It was outside on uneven ground.
Gova: Anyone have some food that isn't fish?
Damola: Haha, Gova tries it here.
Damola: Ah, that clears it.
Damola: It seems Thosor is right about ground terrain effect.
Gova: Ate all three.
Anysu: good to know
Damola: Not like that apple?
Uadjet: So the detection for food seems to require it to be very close, at least on the vertical axis.
Damola: Haha, vegetable noodle soup was enough?
Thosor: Should have tried ale...
Damola: Don't have ale with me. But seems my drifter already has enough.
>You have been awarded item(s) by a GM
>You gained 1 pale ale mug.
Damola: It is correctly placed, isn't it?
Anysu: yeah
Damola: It has 50 energy and is 100 happy
Damola: So maybe good enough for now.
Anysu: maybe
Damola: Anyway, do not want to take too much time for this.
Damola: Anysu want to try ale?
Uadjet: Hey, we made progress on something! That's never wasted time.
Damola: Okay, no ale.
Damola: But nut breat and cooked carrots okay.
Anysu: No ale
Anysu: And not carrots
Thosor: how about groffels and yulbars?
Damola: Oh? which one did you try first? Maybe yours had enough already as well.
Anysu: I did nut bread and then ale
Damola: My drifter took one food and was done. Which is unusual. Rivnak usually eat quite some.
Anysu: It is at 100 now
Thosor: Yes, my pets only eat once, show not full for a long time.
Damola: Ah, so maybe someone need to try ale first.
Damola: So maybe hungry drifter eat ale.
Anysu: THE RIVNAK DRANK THE ALE!!
Damola: Haha, what a lively Q&A today.
Anysu: Likes fish also
Gova: As did my drifter.
Gova: It was a 300q crayfish, though. Not too surprising.
Anysu: That was a neat test!
Damola imagines a new book in library. From Gova, Anysu and Damola "About the eating habits of Drifter and Rivnak - a scientific study with a dozen of different summons."
Uadjet: As for news , most of the last two weeks has been about AI-assisted NPC voicing.
Damola: Ah, I bet due to a lack of voice over contributions?
Damola: I meanwhile saw quite some AI assisted short films and videos. Impressive. But there are still quite some glitches here and there. However? voices are quite good, if you ask me.
Anysu: Not crazy about the enki voice.
Damola: Glitches are more in the image generation / video part.
Gonger: Professional actors / voiceover artists are rightfully concerned about this, but we would not have been able to afford them anyway.
Uadjet: Yeah. There weren't too many player contributions, so Talad tried out the AI version that he's rejected before. It has advanced tremendously, and while still imperfect it is usable.
Gonger: So for us it is either volunteered amateur work, or AI.
Damola: Yeah, Gonger.
Gonger: Or a combination of both, of course.
Damola: Regarding AI it is very important to look closely at copyright issues.
Damola: Cause it depends on what data AI models have been trained with.
Damola: And not all suppliers are transparent about that.
Damola: But I bet Talad is very well aware of that.
Damola: However, speech synthesis is not actually a new approach that just arrived with the recent AI hype.
Anysu: Curious if we have voiced npcs, can you turn them off and use text?
Damola: I bet it would be similar like with Levrus?
Damola: Levrus has some voiced parts that are still displayed in dialog bubbles and NPC chat tab.
Gonger: Oh my god... Levrus singing!!!!
Anysu: Voice off would be a handy option.
Thosor: I have old phoneme chips used to make vowel and mouth sounds
Damola imagines Levrus with a guitar rocking about "my newest spell? oh well, well, well. It went to wrong and made big bong!"
Gonger: COOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLL!
Thosor: coal! coal!
Damola: Coaaaaaaallll? coal is so coaly! Coal, coal, coal.
Damola: Black like the night. Coal, coal, coal.
Gonger: That will break any AI!
Gonger: Damola, remember the quest "More Coal" where we discover that Levrus is a musical fan...
Damola: Faintly so.
Damola: But I remember Levrus babbling around quite a huge lot in some quests.
Uadjet: Oh, god!
Damola: Ah, yeah, I remember.
Damola: Where one had to choose the next sentence to sing in the right order.
Gova: Hey, I liked that quest! It had the best reward in the game!
Anysu: Turning it off the npc voice.. would the be an option?
Damola: Oh, I forgot about the reward.
Gonger: 1 broom
Damola: Ah? that one
Gonger: And Levrus even WROTE that musical.
Anysu: I mean if they spokes word may be wrong, where text  not do much
Damola: Anysu, I bet it would be like the current voice over parts in Levrus quests.
Damola: Spoken and displayed as text on screen.
Damola: Or did Talad said it would only be voice, Uadjet?
Gonger: Also remember those ladies in Amdeneir who practice singing.
Anysu: That is what I would like to know Damola
Uadjet: I think it will always be text, with voicing added on.
Uadjet: I'll ask Talad about making it optional.
Uadjet: I can't imagine Talad getting rid of the text.
>Anysu nods at Uadjet.
Anysu: Thanks
Anysu: Especially if the voice has an accent, may not be able to make out a word.
Uadjet: Each race is getting their own accent, based on real word accents. I'm thinking the choice of accent is what Anysu objects to? Or am I misunderstanding what you've said?
Damola: I agree, Anysu.
Damola: Would always be good to read as text.
Damola: Also for rereading in chat log.
Anysu: Yes I did not like the Asian element in the enki voice
Damola: I am not sure how real world accents would match.
Anysu: It seemed they should be African or first nation people of America. Native americans
Damola: For example a Nolthrir like Damola would have some kind of more flowing accent, like water.
Anysu: Both cultures tribal histories like an enki and nomadic
Damola: However not sure what real world accent would match that.
Uadjet: I'll admit, I thought Native American for Enkidukai too.
Damola: I see.
>Anysu nods at Uadjet.
Damola: My first association is still about cats with human like intelligence for Enki.
Anysu: And I mentioned this addressed to Talad on discord
Damola: But yeah, if you look at tribal like culture, Native American is a match.
Anysu: Or even African.
Damola: For dwarves there might be some real world matches in movies of the fantasy genre.
Damola: Ah, yeah and for elves like Nolthrir and Demorian there may also be matches in fantasy genre.
Damola: But not so much in real world cultures? I'd say.
Anysu: Then that is my opinion. Not sure I'd have much sway on what Talad does. Thus I would also like to turn voice off so I do not get a voice I do not connect with an enki when I speak to enki npc
Damola: I understand, Anysu.
Uadjet: Oh, the dice game has grown more complex. NPCs can now bluff and fold.
Damola: I am also not sure whether matching to real world existing cultures is a good idea? it could be interpreted as an offence to any real world culture.
Damola: I wonder what happens when Talad tries to build AI models into the server.
Damola: But I bet the server may not be powerful enough for somewhat larger models anyway. AI is a challenging topic and needs very careful consideration.
Anysu: Although I think any native peoples would like thier voice perserved or used respectfully given thier past.
Anysu: Complicated dice game.. if complicated seem not something ssomeone would wantto spend time on?
Damola: Maybe. But AI vendors have already been sued for blatlantly copying voices of real world celebrities.
Damola: Did not really interact much with any mini games so far.
Anysu: Me either.
Uadjet: I wonder if at least a few races could have custom accents based on their languages on the wiki. DIfferent languages have different sounds, of course, so that may influence how words and spoken in game.
Damola: Yeah. But also for some language there is not much in the wiki. Like for example Nolthrir language. Just a few words.
Damola: Also? if a Nolthrir NPC speaks Nolthrir, I need subtitle translation at the moment
Anysu: Found some book with many words.. is how we put together the alphabet bool Migg and Anysu
Gonger: Well, expanding those languages could be either very easy or very complicated...
>Anysu nods at Gonger.
Damola: With Nolthrir language some stuff was removed due to copyright issues.
Uadjet: I know I've tried to figure out what soulds underwater races would use. All I can think of is clicks  and other hard sounds that might travel further in water.
Gonger: I am a trained Linguist, but with no experience with artificial languages. I do have knowledge about natural languages that could be useful in this context.
Gonger: Simple example, pronouns are so important that they are very short in almost all languages: Me, I, Du, Er, lui, il, etc
Damola: Uadjet, but it could also be softer sounds like with our whales. But yeah, Dolphins do make clicking voices.
Anysu: So ai voice and dice game. Anything else since over time Uadjet?
Anysu: I did not know that about you Gonger.
Uadjet: Talad did take another look at the Dryken Plane, so comments on that are still welcome.
Uadjet: Other than that, i think we're done.
Gonger: Actually I studied Computational Linguistics, so I know about both computers and languages.
Anysu: That is neat, Gonger.
Anysu: Dryken Plane we could do a whole another hour on that!
Damola: Okay, thanks a lot for the news Uadjet.
Anysu: Good to know. Damola
Damola: So if someone wants to RP a bit, like exploring the vastness of Yliakum and finding harvesting spaces or different interesting spots or crazy new dungeons or mines or what have you?
Uadjet: I'll see you all here again in two weeks, and until then maybe give an event or two a try!

Now there is something more interesting to do than just gathering raw materials and crafting as i mentioned in the start of this forum thread
Now in PS Unreal there are simple Achievements kind of Quest. They are not true quest in the sense what we know about quest in the game. These are some activity you have to do with speaking to a npc included. lemme give you some examples of how these (Quest)Achievements are the types of :-
--Speak with three blacksmiths
--Speak with ten merchants
--Speak with fifteen merchants
--Speak with ten bankers
--Speak with ten trainers
--Use "Prospect Rare Plants" skill to learn about ten rare plants
--Use "Prospect Minerals" skill to learn about three mineral
etc..etc..etc..
So you see there are huge number of such Achievement(Quest) to be done. So come along in the land of Azure Sun and see how many and how fast you can complete these Achievement(Quest)

Haha, I were not aware of those. I enjoyed browsing through them. Thanks!