Hmmm... While I understand your RP plan, I don't think it will be a very fun way to play in Planeshift. It is more fun to mix more roleplaying in with your grinding. Also, it helps with the overall RP atmosphere as it cuts down on the amount of people that don't seem to RP very much. It also helps build up your notability to RP more, even in the beginning, since that will make other characters notice your character more than selling, harvesting, or mining.
Also, I would say that you are right about RP in Planeshift being more than RP in a AD&D sense. I am not familiar with RP in an AD&D sense but RP in MMOs is most definitely different from other forms of RP and Planeshift is different from other MMOs that have RPers. However, I would say that it is the openness of the possibilities that make it different and not the need to grind to actually progress. For instance, I RPed one of my characters as cooking long before the cooking system was implemented. I started her off as being a decent cook and left the cooking progression in her backstory. Even though I eventually stopped to quickly grind her skill in cooking up to the level that I RPed her at, I would often skip the cooking mechanics and just RP it even though the mechanics existed for it.
You aren't bound to the mechanics in this game and I admit that it can be both a good and a bad thing. But, it leaves a lot of flexibility for picking the path that will help your tell your character's story more efficiently. There are times when actually having some mined goods is useful, but at times they aren't crucial to the story. In Planeshift, I would always suggest picking the option that can save you more time for character and story development. For instance, sometimes strictly RPing crafting can take up more time than it would take to go over to the crafting tools and make something via mechanics. It really depends on the circumstance and sometimes the two will even overlap. I often RP while I mine. My poor character gets quite a few lumps from it too.
However, on defining Dev work: I can tell you that, most likely, the Devs already know most of the stuff that needs fixing. The problem is that they don't have enough people jumping in to help work things out. You can't change or fix anything without the manpower to do it. For instance, the Settings team is currently working through the Knowledge Seekers guild to try and get player submitted books into the game; however, in order for the Settings Dev to carry out that project, they need players to actually submit books. The same goes for getting new art, new code, and quest changes in the game. More players need to contribute or start signing up to be Devs to see more change.
However, players can definitely do quests and such from within the game as regular players and help without contributing. However, that is harder to pull off since you need more people to actually participate. The player run areas are a good example of what happens if you don't get enough player support. But, I wanted to have my apothecary character send out other characters out to gather ingredients for her at a fixed price per ingredient. It works to a certain extent but it rarely seems to get very big. Although I think that Indygo had the most success in such things recently. It seems he got a lot of players trying to help his character find a lost book of sentimental value.
On the Economy: Planeshift has always had an unstable economy and a fluctuating playerbase, so trying to apply real world economics to it is always going have a lopsided result. That is to say that the economy has been shot longer than it is has been in order. Right now: there is too much tria coming into the system from NPCs>> prices are inflated as a result>> people turn to doing everything themselves to offset the time spent and the cost>> there is little demand for surplus goods because everyone can get stuff themselves>> You turn to doing everything yourself since doing it to supply others doesn't do much good anyway. A complete overhaul of the economy is required to get a more naturally working economy and I don't see that happening any time in the next 10 years.
Also, the point of Planeshift is not to make you grind, it's to give you a platform for RPing. (Mind you, it is really really good at making you grind) So the grind should be minimal as it takes time away from other more meaningful character interactions and story development. I guarantee you that a lot of the wars and RP plots of the past would not have been as effective if they were constantly broken up by long bouts of grinding. But I do agree that it has its place... just a minimal place.
The way I found Planeshift was that I was looking for games online and I found Planeshift. Once started playing, I just hung around for the last 7 years... Good grief I've been hanging around here for a long time.
But planeshift was my first MMO... well, the first 3D MMO.
Oh, before I forget... my issue preventing me from getting in game is actually before I can get the client up. It is more of a windows issue. I get an error if I try to open any Planeshift application. The problem with PS and troubleshooting is that there are always new bugs that require different fixes than the last set of bugs. Knowing how to fix the old bugs sometimes helps but often doesn't help. Unfortunately, it always takes a community effort to corral our bugs.
(Sorry if there were English fails in this post but I'm not quite feeling well enough to do my normal 200 revisions of what I wrote.)
