What version of the game is this?

[Siteri Kidachi]

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/planeshift/screenindex.html

Is this the original version of the game? It's interesting how much the character designs changed. White Krans, fierce-looking menkis, bald dwarves... And fenkis in black!

They even have actual female elves... why aren't those still being used?

[neko kyouran]

MB more than likely.

When going from MB to CB, the character model completely changed.  As such, old skins simply won't work on the new models.  The Devs simply haven't remade most of the skins for the new models yet.

Thats the simple version I understand.  If you want the detailed technical mumble jumble reason, umm, bug Karyuu. 

[stfrn]

Fairly early MB, as jorrit is playing

Before MB there was AB, and before that even lower quality versions. So yes, planeshift has come a long way. And it might get a bit further too

[LigH]

In Talad's presentation from the CrystalSpace conference you can even see an early PlaneShift 2D screenshot (and if you look through the website, you might find it too).

http://crystalspace3d.org/downloads/conference_2006/planeshift_conf.pdf

[Karyuu]

Several of those screenshots are still on the PS website today, as LigH mentioned - within the Pics section. With the come of CB a new skeleton system was put into use, which meant that all models had to be recreated. Not all made it through to CB immediately, but many new models were introduced as well.

New Kran skins are yet to be created for the new model, and we still have work to do on basic color-changing clothes.